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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Out of the Heart 



$oemg for lofocrs 

YOUNG AND OLD 



SELECTED BY 

JOHN WHITE CHADWICK 

Author of "A Book of Poems" etc., a?id Compiler of " The Two 
Voices : Poems of the Mountains ami the Sea " 

AND 

ANNIE HATHAWAY CHADWICK 



All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
All are but ministers of Love, 
And feed its sacred flame. 

Coleridge. 



OPYRI 

OCT 

TROY, N. V. 

NIMS AND KNIGH™ 

1S91 







Copyright, 1891, 
By Nims and Knight. 



Slntberstts ^ress: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



Out of the Heart 

Out of the heart it came, the impulse strong, 
With patient labor and with loving art 
This wreath to gather, — every flower a song 
Out of the heart. 

And some have morning's dew on every part ; 
And some have drunk the sunshine all day long; 
And some are paler for love's secret smart. 

Dear, happy children, who can do no wrong, 
A few have brought ; a few like tear-drops start, 
For those whose treasure has been missing lojig, 
Out of the heart. 

j. w. c. 



NOTE. 



IT is not without regret that we have omitted from 
our selection many beautiful examples in this kind 
which have the rank of classics in the lyric art. We 
have done it because they are so generally known and 
so easily accessible, especially in Palgrave's u Golden 
Treasury," — the best of all anthologies. But we could 
not deny ourselves a few of these, nor a few of Shak- 
spere's sonnets, where we craved a double score. We 
trust that our selection has the merits of freshness and 
genuine feeling and true poetry in the main. If per- 
sonal considerations have included some not equal to 
these standards, the indulgence of the reader for them 
is herewith desired. Our deliberate gleanings, though 
near and far, have yielded us few poems in comparison 
with our happy memories of much-loved things. The 
little we have trenched on previous anthologies is justi- 
fied by the lover's right of eminent domain. 

While giving authors 1 names in full in the table of 
contents, we have with the separate poems sometimes 
used other forms when they have a more familiar 
sound. Our gratitude is due, and is hereby expressed, 
for the kindness of many authors and publishers in 
allowing us the use of their poems and their pub- 
lications ; to Charles Scribner's Sons for the poems 
of Eugene Field and Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge ; to 
Roberts Brothers for Emily Dickinson's and many 
others ; and especially to Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., on 
whose editions of various poets, both American and 
English, we have drawn with no illiberal hand. 

Brooklyn, May 5, 1891. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Page 
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey 

Palabras Carinosas 10 

Who know not Love ., 115 

Alighieri Dante 

His Lady's Praise 49 

Her Helpfulness 113 

Anonymous. 

' Lovers 34 

To a Girl 61 

Unkind Words 125 

Sun and Rain 127 

Home Song 128 

Which? 153 

Love and Death 162 

Arnold, Matthew 

Excuse , . . 165 

Bartlett, Mary C. 

Baby's Skies 132 

Beduoes, Thomas Lovell 

How Many Times ? 44 



viii IXDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Page 

Boccaccio, 

Of Three Girls and their Talk 40 

Brooke, Stopford 

At Last 106 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 

Fulness of Love S 

The Ways of Love 57 

Far and yet Near 59 

First, second, third y]> 

Love for Love's Sake 103 

Browning, Robert 

Summum Bonum . . 2 

The Moth's Kiss first 21 

Life in a Love 22 

Love in a Life . . 24 

A Pearl — A Girl 29 

My Star 35 

In Three Days 63 

Her Perfect Praise j$ 

Garden Fancies. The Flower's Name -84 

To E. B. B 106 

Speculative 113 

BUONARROTTI, MlCHAEL ANGELO 

In Love's own Time 84 

Love's Justification SS 

Ideal Love 104 

Calthrop, Samuel Robert 

Where Baby Joy comes from 140 

Chadwick, John White 

Starlight 20 

Fate , . 37 

A Wedding Sonsr 122 



IXDEX OF AUTHORS. IX 

Page 

The Oldest Story 12S 

In an Unknown Tongue 133 

New House ; Old Home 16S 

Tete-a-Tete i?3 

Clarke, James Freeman 

The Difficulty 4 2 

Love doth to her Eyes repair . 46 

A Reminiscence 102 

Clarke, Lilian 

Wer wenig sucht, der findet viel 5 

(Translated from Riickert.) 

Craik, Dinah Mulock 

Mine 52 

Lettice 105 

Daniel, Samuel 

Early Love 31 

Desbordes-Valmore, Madame 

Parted . , 112 

Dickinson, Emily 

Have you got a Brook in your Little Heart ? . . . . 51 

If you were coming in the Fall 69 

No Time to hate 99 

The First Lesson 114 

The Daisy follows soft the Sun = . , 1S0 

Dodge, Mary Mapes 

Umpires 66 

Drayton, Michael 

Sonnet 9S 

Eliot, George (Marian Evans Cross) 

Brother and Sister 162 

Two Lovers i/5 



X INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Page 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo 

Eros i 

The Amulet 25 

Friendship 165 

Field, Eugene 

Some Time 139 

Our Two Opinions 167 

Gannett, William Channing 

The Old Love Song ._ 15S 

In Twos 176 

Gilder, Richard Watson 

Oh, Love is not a Summer Mood 1 

I count my Times by Times that I meet thee .... 4 

Song 16 

My Love for thee doth march like Armed Men ... 56 

Love me not, Love, for that I first loved thee .... 70 

At Four-score 170 

Goodale, Elaine 

Mother . . . . 133 

Baby 137 

Henley, William Ernest 

With Strawberries . . 3 

A Pleasant Song 55 

In the Year that 's come and gone 57 

By the Swinging Seas 60 

When you are old 103 

Herrick, Robert 

To the Virgins to make much of Time 71 

Upon Julia's Clothes 96 

A Grace for a Child 143 



IXDEX OF AUTHORS. xi 

Page 
Higginsox, Mrs. Thomas Wentworth 

The Playmate Hours 137 

Higginsox, Thomas Wentworth 

Sonnet from Petrarch 74 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell 

The Old Man dreams 178 

Hood, Thomas 

Ruth 43 

Howells, William Deax 

Caprice 62 

Before the Gate 82 

Hunt, James Henry Leigh 

Jenny kissed me 98 

An Angel in the House 119 

Hutchinson ; Ellen Mackay 

Priscilla 50 

Jackson. Helen Hunt 

Two Truths 125 

Morning-glory 146 

Jones, Robert (Elizabethan Song Book) 

When Love most secret is 17 

An Old Lover 32 

Keats, John 

Happy Insensibility iS 

Kingsley. Charles 

Home Comfort 153 

Leland. Charles Godfrey (Anglo-Romany Songs) 

Romany Song 27 



Xli IXDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Page 
Locker-Lampson, Frederick 

A Nice Correspondent n 

St. George's, Hanover Square 64 

A Rhyme of One 135 

■ Baby mine T49 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 

The Children's Hour 143 

The Golden Mile-stone 152 

Holidays 159 

Longfellow, Samuel 

To a Daughter on her Marriage 119 

Lovelace, Richard 

To Lucasta 91 

Lowell, James Russell 

The Protest 13 

Agro-Dolce 62 

The Pregnant Comment 71 

A Foreboding 89 

Telepathy 92 

MacDonald, George 

Like a Little Child 150 

Marquis of Montrose 

I '11 never love Thee more 93 

McKay, James T. 

The Whispering Gallery 39 

Milnes, Richard Monckton (Lord Houghton) 

The Brook-side Sy 

Osgood, Kate Putnam 

What else ? 30 



IXDEX OF AUTHORS. xiii 

Page 
Palgrave, Francis Turner 

To a Child .152 

Patmore, Coventry 

The Queen 6 

Night Thoughts 90 

Love ceremonious 94 

The Paradox no 

The Toys 145 

Percival, James Gates 

My Love 93 

Perry, Carlotta 

Love's Meaning . 15 

Perry, Nora 

Riding down 25 

Some Day of Days 109 

Praed, Winthrop Mackworth 

The Newly Wedded 121 

Sketch of a Young Lady Five Months old 130 

Procter, Adelaide Anne 

A Woman's Answer 100 

Rand, William Brighty 

The Happy Child. 148 

Riley, James Whitcomb 

When she comes home 124 

Rossetti, Christina Georgina 

The First Meeting : . . . . 2 

A Ring Posy 55 

The Good Sister 161 



XIV INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Page 
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel 

Silent Noon u 

The Love Letter 65 

Savary, John 

A Wedding Song 120 

Shakspere, William 

The Garden of Love 4 

My Music 19 

Amor omnia vincit 31 

Ann Hathaway 36 

True Love 86 

The Lover's Night Thoughts 89 

The Course of Love 107 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe 

One Word is too often profaned 46 

Sidney, Sir Philip 

A Nobler Exercise 20 

Ditty 53 

Sill, Edward Rowland 

Eve's Daughter „ 64 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence 

Toujours Amour ^ 

The Doorstep 80 

A Mother's Picture 147 

Laura my Darling 156 

Betrothed anew , 160 

Stevenson, Robert Louis 

The Difference 54 

With a Hand-Glass 91 



IXDEX OF AUTHORS. XV 

Page 
Story, William Wetmore 

Love and Prudence 24 

Love 28 

Un Bacio dato non e mai perduto 78 

Filia pulchra ! • . 95 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles 

Kissing her Hair 45 

Sylvester, Joshua 

Love's Omnipresence 40 

Symonds, John Addington 

A Mystery 41 

Tennyson, Alfred Lord 

From Maud 14 

The Woman's Cause 16 

At Life's best 22 

Ask me no more 44 

Summer is coming 66 

The Letters 96 

Song 107 

The Wedding-day , 115 

The Day-dream — The Departure 123 

From the Miller's Daughter 141 

Thackeray, William Makepeace 

At the Church Gate 8 

Turner, Eliza Sproat 

All Mother 142 

Compensation jr 

Wasson, David Atwood 

Love against Love 7 

Love's Victory 58 



XVI IXDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Page 
Webb, Charles Henry 

Last Night in blue my Little Love was dressed ... 61 

Webster, Augusta 

The Happiest Girl in the World 47 

Whittier, John Greenleaf 

Amy Wentworth 75 

Wright, Merle St. Croix 

Fate 38 

Translation from Heine 39 

Cradle Song 138 



OUT OF THE HEART. 



EROS. 

THE sense of the world is short, — 
Long and various the report, — 
To love and be beloved ; 
Men and gods have not outlearned it ; 
And, how oft soe'er they've turned it, 
'T is not to be improved. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 



'OH, LOVE IS NOT A SUMMER MOOD." 

OH, Love is not a summer mood, 
Nor flying phantom of the brain, 
Nor youthful fever of the blood, 

Nor dream, nor fate, nor circumstance. 
Love is not born of blinded chance, 
Nor bred in simple ignorance. 

Love is the flower of maidenhood ; 
Love is the fruit of mortal pain ; 
And she hath winter in her blood. 



OUT OF THE HEART 

True love is steadfast as the skies, 
And once alight she never flies ; 
And love is strong, and love is wise. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



THE FIRST MEETING. 

T WISH I could remember that first day, 

First hour, first moment of your meeting me, 
If bright or dim the season, it might be 

Summer or winter for aught I can say; 

So unrecorded did it slip away, 

So blind was I to see and to foresee, 
So dull to mark the budding of my tree 

That would not blossom yet for many a May. 

If only I could recollect it — such 
A day of days ! I let it come and go 
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow ; 

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much ; 

If only now I could recall that touch, 

First touch of hand in hand — did one but know ! 

Christina Rossetti. 



A 



SUMMUM BONUM. 

LL the breath and the bloom of the year in the 
bag of one bee : 
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart 
of one gem : 



WITH STRAWBERRIES. 3 

In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine 
of the sea ; 
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — wonder, wealth, 
and — how far above them — 

Truth, that's brighter than gem, 
Trust, that's purer than pearl, — 
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe — all were 
for me 

In the kiss of one girl. 

Robert Browning. 



WITH STRAWBERRIES. 

WITH strawberries we filled a tray, 
And then we drove away, away 
Along the links beside the sea, 
Where wave and wind were light and free, 
And August felt as fresh as May. 

And where the springy turf was gay 
With thyme and balm and many a spray 
Of wild roses, you tempted me 

With strawberries. 

A shadowy sail, silent and gray, 
Stole like a ghost across the bay ; 
But none could hear me ask my fee, 
And none could know what came to be. 
Can sweethearts all their thirst allay 

With strawberries ? 
William Ernest Henley. 



OUT OF THE HEART. 



THE GARDEN OF LOVE. 

FROM you have I been absent in the spring, 
When proud-pied April dress 'd in all his trim 
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, 
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. 
Yet nor the lay of birds, nor the sweet smell 
Of different flowers in odour and in hue, 
Could make me any summer's story tell, 
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew ; 
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, 
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; 
They were but sweet, but figures of delight, 
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. 
Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, 
As with your shadow I with these did play. 

William Shakspere, 



"I COUNT MY TIMES BY TIMES THAT I 
MEET THEE." 

I COUNT my times by times that I meet thee ; 
These are my yesterdays, my morrows, noons 
And nights ; these my old moons and my new moons. 
Slow fly the hours, or fast the hours do flee, 
If thou art far from or art near to me : 

If thou art far, the birds' tunes are no tunes ; 
If thou art near, the wintry days are Junes, — 
Darkness is light, and sorrow cannot be. 



WER WE NIG SUCHT, ETC. 5 

Thou art my dream come true, and thou my dream, 

The air I breathe, the world wherein I dwell; 

My journey's end thou art, and thou the way ; 
Thou art what I would be, yet only seem ; 

Thou art my heaven and thou art my hell ; 

Thou art my ever-living judgment day. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



WER WENIG SUCHT, DER FINDET VIEL. 

Translated from Riickert. 

ONLY a shelter for my head I sought, 
One stormy winter night; 
To me the blessing of my life was brought, 

Making the whole world bright. 
How shall I thank thee for a gift so sweet, 

O dearest Heavenly Friend? 
I sought a resting-place for weary feet, 
And found my journey's end. 

Only the latch et of a friendly door 

My timid fingers tried ; 
A loving heart, with all its precious store, 

To me was opened wide. 
I asked for shelter from a passing shower, — 

My sun shall always shine ! 
I would have sat beside the hearth an hour, — 

And the whole heart was mine ! 

Lilian Clarke. 



6 OUT OF THE HEART. 



THE QUEEN. 

TO heroism and holiness 
How hard it is for man to soar, 
But how much harder to be less 

Than what his mistress loves him for ! 
He does with ease what do he must, 

Or lose her, and there 's nought debarr'd 
From him who 's call'd to meet her trust, 

And credit her desired regard. 
Ah, wasteful woman, she that may 

On her sweet self set her own price, 
Knowing he cannot choose but pay, 

How has she cheapen'd paradise ; 
How given for nought her priceless gift, 

How spoil'd the bread and spill'd the wine, 
Which spent with due, respective thrift, 

Had made brutes men, and men divine ! 

Queen, awake to thy renown, 
Require what 't is our wealth to give, 

And comprehend and wear the crown 
Of thy despised prerogative ! 

1 who in manhood's name at length 
With glad songs come to abdicate 

The gross regality of strength, 
Must yet in this thy praise abate, 

That through thine erring humbleness 
And disregard of thy degree, 



LOVE AGAINST LOVE, 

Mainly, has man been so much less 

Than fits his fellowship with thee. 
High thoughts had shaped the foolish brow, 

The coward had grasp'd the hero's sword, 
The vilest had been great, hadst thou, 

Just to thyself, been worth's reward : 
But lofty honours undersold 

Seller and buyer both disgrace ; 
And favour that makes folly bold 

Puts out the light in virtue's face. 

Coventry Patmore. 



LOVE AGAINST LOVE. 

AS unto blowing roses summer dews, 
Or morning's amber to the tree-top choirs, 
So to my bosom are the beams that use 

To rain on me from eyes that love inspires. 
Your love, vouchsafe it, royal-hearted few, 

And I will set no common price thereon ; 
Oh ! I will keep as heaven its holy blue, 

Or night her diamonds, that dear treasure won. 
But aught of inward faith must I forego, 

Or miss one drop from Truth's baptismal hand. 
Think poorer thoughts, pray cheaper prayers, and grow 

Less worthy trust, to meet your heart's demand? 
Farewell ! Your wish I for your sake deny; 
Rebel to love in truth to love am I. 

David A. Wasson. 



OUT OF THE HEART 



FULNESS OF LOVE. 

IF I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange 
And be all to me ? Shall I never miss 
Home-talk and blessing, and the common kiss 
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, 
When I look up, to drop on a new range 
Of walls and floors, . . . another home than this ? 
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is 
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? 
That 's hardest ! If to conquer love, has tried, 
To conquer grief tries more ... as all things prove, 
For grief indeed is love and grief beside. 
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love — 
Yet love me — wilt thou ? Open thine heart wide, 
And fold within the wet wings of thy dove. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



AT THE CHURCH GATE. 

ALTHOUGH I enter not, 
Yet round about the spot 
Ofttimes I hover: 
And near the sacred gate, 
With longing eyes I wait, 
Expectant of her. 



AT THE CHURCH GATE, 

The Minster bell tolls out 
Above the city's rout 

And noise and humming ; 
They 've hushed the Minster bell : 
The organ 'gins to swell : 

She 's coming, she 's coming ! 

My lady comes at last, 
Timid, and stepping fast, 

And hastening hither, 
With modest eyes downcast : 
She comes — she 's here — she 's past — 

May Heaven go with her! 

Kneel, undisturb'd, fair Saint ! 
Pour out your praise or plaint 

Meekly and duly; 
I will not enter there, 
To sully your pure prayer 

With thoughts unruly. 

But suffer me to pace 
Round the forbidden place, 

Lingering a minute, 
Like outcast spirits who wait 
And see through heaven's gate 

Angels within it. 

William M. Thackeray. 



10 OUT OF THE HEART 

PALABRAS CARINOSAS. 

Spanish Air. 

GOOD-NIGHT ! I have to say good-night 
To such a host of peerless things ! 
Good-night unto that fragile hand 
All queenly with its weight of rings ; 
Good-night to fond, uplifted eyes, 
Good-night to chestnut braids of hair, 
Good-night unto the perfect mouth, 
And all the sweetness nestled there — 
The snowy hand detains me, then 
I '11 have to say Good-night again ! 

But there will come a time, my love, 

When, if I read our stars aright, 

I shall not linger by this porch 

With my adieus. Till then, good-night! 

You wish the time were now? And I. 

You do not blush to wish it so ? 

You would have blushed yourself to death 

To own so much a year ago — 

What, both these snowy hands ! Ah, then 
I '11 have to say Good-night again ! 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 



A NICE CORRESPONDENT. II 



SILENT NOON. 

YOUR hands lie open in the long fresh grass, — 
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms : 
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and 
glooms 
Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. 
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, 
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge 
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. 
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass. 

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly 
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: — 

So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above. 
Oh ! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, 
This close-companioned inarticulate hour 

When twofold silence was the song of love. 

Dante G. Rossetti. 



A NICE CORRESPONDENT. 

THE glow and the glory are plighted 
To darkness, for evening is come ; 
The lamp in Glebe Cottage is lighted. 

The birds and the sheep-bells are dumb. 
I 'm alone, for the others have flitted 

To dine with a neighbor at Kew ; 
Alone, but I 'm not to be pitied — 

I 'm thinking of you ! 



12 OUT OF THE HEART. 

I wish you were here ! Were I duller 
Than dull, you 'd be dearer than dear ; 

I am drest in your favourite colour — 
Dear Fred, how I wish you were here ! 

I am wearing my lazuli necklace, — 
The necklace you fastened askew ! 

Was there ever so rude and so reckless 
A darling as you ? 

I want you to come and pass sentence 
On two or three books with a plot ; 

Of course you know "Janet's Repentance"? 
I 'm reading Sir Waver ly Scott, 

That story of Edgar and Lucy, 
How thrilling, romantic, and true ! 

The Master (his bride was a goosey ! ) 
Reminds me of you. 

They tell me Cockaigne has been crowning 
A Poet whose garland endures ; — 

It was you who first spouted me Browning, — 
That stupid old Browning of yours ! 

His vogue and his verve are alarming, 
I 'm anxious to give him his due, 

But, Fred, he 's not nearly so charming 
A poet as you. 

I heard how you shot at the Beeches, 
I saw how you rode Chanticleer, 

I have read the report of your speeches, 
And echo'd the echoing cheer : 



THE PROTEST. 13 

There 's a whisper of hearts you are breaking, 

Dear Fred, I believe it, I do ! 
Small marvel that Fashion is making 
Her idol of you! 

Alas for the world, and its dearly 

Bought triumph, its fugitive bliss; 
Sometimes I half wish I were merely 

A plain or a penniless miss ; 
But perhaps one is best with " a measure 

Of pelf," and I 'm not sorry, too, 
That I 'm pretty, because it 's a pleasure, 
My darling, to you ! 

Your whim is for frolic and fashion, 

Your taste is for letters and art; — 
This rhyme is the common-place passion 

That glows in a fond woman's heart : 
Lay it by in some sacred deposit 
For relics — we all have a few ! 
Love, some day they '11 print it, because it 
Was written to you. 

Frederick Locker. 



THE PROTEST. 

I COULD not bear to see those eyes 
On all with wasteful largesse shine, 
And that delight of welcome rise 
Like sunshine strained through amber wine, 



14 OUT OF THE HEART. 

But that a glow from deeper skies, 
From conscious fountains more divine, 
Is (is it ?) mine. 

Be beautiful to all mankind, 
As nature fashioned thee to be ; 
'T would anger me did all not find 
The sweet perfection that 's in thee : 
Yet keep one charm of charms behind, — 
Nay, thou 'rt so rich, keep two or three 
For (is it?) me ! 

James Russell Lowell. 



FROM "MAUD." 

QUEEN rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 
Come hither, the dances are done, 
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 

Queen lily and rose in one ; 
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 
To the flowers, and be their sun. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 

From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear ; 

She is coming, my life, my fate ; 
The red rose cries, " She is near, she is near ; " 

And the white rose weeps, u She is late ; " 
The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear ; " 

And the lily whispers, " I wait." 



LOVE'S MEANING. I 5 

She is coming, my own, my sweet ; 

Were it ever so airy a tread, 
My heart would hear her and beat, 

Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
My dust would hear her and beat, 

Had I lain for a century dead ; 
Would start and tremble under her feet, 

And blossom in purple and red. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



LOVE'S MEANING. 

I THOUGHT it meant all glad ecstatic things, — 
Fond glance and touch and speech, quick blood 
and brain, 
And strong desire, and keen, delicious pain, 
And beauty's thrall, and strange bewilderings 
Twixt hope and fear, like to the little stings 

The rose-thorn gives, and then the utter gain — 
Worth all my sorest strivings to attain — 
Of the dear bliss long-sought possession gives. 

Now with a sad, clear sight that reassures 
My often sinking soul, with longing eyes 

Averted from the path that still allures, 

Lest, seeing that for which my sore heart sighs, 

I seek my own good at the cost of yours, — 
I know at last that love means sacrifice. 

Carlotta Perry. 



l6 OUT OF THE HEART 



SONG. 

NOT from the whole wide world I chose thee — 
Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea ! 
The wide, wide world could not inclose thee, 
For thou art the whole wide world to me. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



THE WOMAN'S CAUSE. 

THE woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free : 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
If she be small, slight -natured, miserable, 
How shall men grow ? But work no more alone ! 
Our place is much ; as far as in us lies 
We two will serve them both in aiding her, — 
Will clear away the parasitic forms 
That seem to keep her up, but drag her down; 
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 
Within her, — let her make herself her own 
To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
For woman is not undeveloped man, 
But diverse : could we make her as the man, 
Sweet love were slain ; his dearest bond is this, 



WHEN LOVE MOST SECRET IS. \J 

Not like to like, but like in difference : 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 

The man be more of woman, she of man ; 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 

She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 

Till at the last she set herself to man, 

Like perfect music unto noble words ; 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers, 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 

Self-reverent each, and reverencing each, 

Distinct in individualities, 

But like each other even as those who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men ; 

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm; 

Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 

May these things be ! 

Alfred Tennyson. 



WHEN LOVE MOST SECRET IS. 

THE fountains smoke, and yet no flames they 
show ; 
Stars shine by night, though undiscerned by day; 
And trees do spring, yet are not seen to grow ; 

And shadows move, although they seem to stay : 
In Winter's woe is buried Summer's bliss, 
And Love loves most when love most secret is. 

2 



1 8 OUT OF THE HEART 

The stillest streams descry the greatest deep : 
The clearest sky is subject to a shower ; 

Conceit 's most sweet when as it seems to sleep, 
And fairest days do in the morning lower; 

The silent groves sweet nymphs they cannot miss. 

For Love loves most when love most secret is. 

The rarest jewels hidden virtue yield ; 

The sweet of traffic is a secret gain ; 
The year once old doth show a barren field ; 

And plants seem dead, and yet they spring again: 
Cupid is blind ; the reason why is this, — 
Love loveth most when love most secret is. 

Robert Jones : Elizabethan Song Book, 



HAPPY INSENSIBILITY. 

IN a drear-nighted December. 
Too happy, happy Tree, 
Thy branches ne'er remember 

Their green felicity ; 
The north cannot undo them 
With a sleety whistle through them, 
Nor frozen thawings glue them 
From budding at the prime. 

In a drear-nighted December, 
Too happy, happy Brook, 

Thy bubblings ne'er remember 
Apollo's summer look ; 



MY MUSIC. 19 

But with a sweet forgetting 
They stay their crystal fretting, 
Never, never petting 
About the frozen time. 

Ah, would 't were so with many 

A gentle girl and boy ! 
But were there ever any 

Writhed not at passed joy ? 

To know the change and feel it, 

When there is none to heal it, 

Nor numbed sense to steal it, — 

Was never said in rhyme. 

John Keats. 

MY MUSIC. 

HOW oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, 
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds 
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st 
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, 
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap 
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, 
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, 
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand ! 
To be so tickled, they would change their state 
And situation with those dancing chips, 
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, 
Making dead wood more blest than living lips. 
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, 
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. 

William Shakspere. 



20 OUT OF THE HEART. 



STARLIGHT. 

LOOK up,'' she said; and all the heavens blazed 
With countless myriads of quiet stars, 
Whereon a moment silently he gazed, 
And drank that peace no trouble ever mars. 
Then looking down into her face upturned, 
Two other stars that did outshine the rest 
Upward to him with such soft splendor yearned 
That all her secret w r as at once confessed. 
Then he with kisses did put out their light, 
And said, "Oh, strange, but more, dear love, to me 
Are thy pure eyes than all the stars of night 
That shine in heaven everlastingly! 
Night still is night, with every star aglow ; 
But light were night didst thou not love me so." 

John W. Chadwick. 



A NOBLER EXERCISE. 

OKISSE, which doest those ruddie gemmes im- 
part, 
Or gemmes or frutes of new-found Paradise, 
Breathing all blisse, and sweet'ning to the heart, 
Teaching dumbe lips a nobler exercise ; 
O kisse, which soules, even soules, together ties 
By linkes of love and only Nature's art, 
How faine would I paint thee to all men's eyes, 
Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part ! 



THE MOTH'S KISS FIRST. 21 

But she forbids ; with blushing words she sayes 

She builds her fame on higher-seated praise. 

But my heart burnes ; I cannot silent be. 

Then, since, deare life, you faine would have me peace, 

And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease, 

Stop you my mouth with still, still kissing me. 

Sir Philip Sidney. 



THE MOTH'S KISS FIRST. 

THE moth's kiss first! 
Kiss me as if you made believe 
You were not sure, this eve, 
How my face, your flower, had pursed 
Its petals up ; so, here and there 
You brush it, till I grow aware 
Who wants me, and wide open burst. 

The bee's kiss, now ! 
Kiss me as if you entered gay 
My heart at some noonday, — 
A bud that dares not disallow 
The claim, so all is rendered up; 
And passively its shattered cup 
Over your head to sleep I bow. 

Robert Browning. 



22 OUT OF THE HEART 



AT LIFE'S BEST. 

LOOK up, and let thy nature strike on mine 
Like yonder morning on the blind half-world ; 
Approach and fear not ; breathe upon my brows ; 
In that fine air I tremble, all the past 
Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this 
Is morn to more, and all the rich to come 
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels 
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, 
I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride, 
My wife, my life. Oh, we will walk this world, 
Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 
And so through those dark gates across the wild 
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee ; come, 
Yield thyself up : my hopes and thine are one : 
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself, 
Lay thy sweet hands in mine, and trust to me. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



LIFE IN A LOVE. 

ESCAPE me? 
Never — 
Beloved ! 
While I am I, and you are you, 

So long as the world contains us both, 
Me the loving and you the loth, 
While the one eludes, must the other pursue. 



LOVE IN A LIFE. 21 

My life is at fault at last I fear — 

It seems too much like a fate, indeed ! 

Though I do my best, I shall scarce succeed ; 
But what if I fail of my purpose here ? 
It is but to keep the nerves at strain, 

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, 
And, baffled, get up to begin again, — 

So the chase takes up one's life, that 's all. 
While, look but once from your furthest bound, 

At me so deep in the dust and dark, 
No sooner the old hope drops to ground 

Than a new one, straight to the self -same mark, 
I shape me — 
Ever 

Removed ! 

Robert Browning. 



LOVE IN A LIFE. 

ROOM after room, 
I hunt the house through 
We inhabit together. 

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her, 
Next time, herself ! — not the trouble behind her 
Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume ! 
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed 

anew, — 
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather. 
Yet the day wears, 
And door succeeds door ; 
I try the fresh fortune, — 



24 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Range the wide house from the wing to the centre. 
Still the same chance ! she goes out as I enter. 
Spend my whole day in the quest, — who cares ? 
But 't is twilight, you see, — with such suites to explore, 
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune ! 

Robert Browning. 



LOVE AND PRUDENCE. 

DO you remember that most perfect night, 
In the full flush of June, 
When the wide heavens were tranced in silver light 

Of the sad, patient moon ? 
Silent we sat, awed by a strange unrest ; 

The fathomless, far sky 
Our very life absorbed, our thoughts oppressed, 
By its immensity. 

Lost in that infinite vast, how idle seemed 

The best of human speech ; 
Earth scarcely breathed, so silently she dreamed, 

Save when from some far reach 
The faint wind sighed, and stirred the slumbering 
trees, 

And shadowy stretch and plain 
Seemed haunted by unuttered mysteries 

Night on its life had lain. 

We knew not what we were, or where we went, 
Borne by some unseen power, 



RIDING DOWN. 2$ 

Nor in what dream-shaped realms our spirits spent 

That long, yet brief half-hour; 
I only know that, as a star from high 

Slides down the ether thin, 
We shot to earth, roused by a startling cry, 
" You 're getting cold, — come in." 

William Wetmore Story. 

THE AMULET. 

YOUR picture smiles as first it smiled ; 
The ring you gave is still the same ; 
Your letter tells, O changing child ! 
No tidings since it came. 

Give me an amulet 

That keeps intelligence with you, — 
Red when you love, and rosier red. 

And when you love not, pale and blue. 

Alas ! that neither bonds nor vows 

Can certify possession ; 
Torments me still the fear that love 

Died in its last expression. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

RIDING DOWN. 

OH, did you see him riding down, 
And riding down, while all the town 
Came out to see, came out to see, 
And all the bells rang mad with glee ? 



26 OUT OF THE HEART 

Oh, did you hear those bells ring out, 
The bells ring out, the people shout, 
And did you hear that cheer on cheer 
That over all the bells rang clear? 

And did you see the waving flags, 

The fluttering flags, the tattered flags, 

Red, white, and blue, shot through and through, 

Baptized with battle's deadly dew ? 

And did you hear the drum's gay beat, 
The drum's gay beat, the bugles sweet, 
The cymbals clash, the cannon's crash, 
That rent the sky with sound and flash ? 

And did you see me waiting there, 
Just waiting there and watching there, — 
One little lass, amid the mass 
That pressed to see the hero pass ? 

And did you see him smiling down, 
And smiling down, as riding down 
With slowest pace, with stately grace, 
He caught the vision of a face, — 

My face uplifted, red and white, 
Turned red and white with sheer delight, 
To meet the eyes, the smiling eyes, 
Outflashing in their swift surprise ? 

Oh, did you see how swift it came, 
How swift it came, like sudden flame, 
That smile to me, to only me, 
The little lass who blushed to see ? 



ROMANY SONG. 2*] 

And at the windows all along, 
Oh, all along, a lovely throng 
Of faces fair, beyond compare, 
Beamed out upon him riding there ! 

Each face was like a radiant gem, 
A sparkling gem ; and yet for them 
No swift smile came, like sudden flame, 
No arrowy glance took certain aim. 

He turned away from all their grace ; 
From all that grace of perfect face, 
He turned to me, to only me, 
The little lass who blushed to see. 

Nora Perry. 



ROMANY SONG. 

IF I were your little baby, 
If you were my mother old, 
You would give me a kiss, my darling, — 
" Oh, sir, you are far too bold." 

But as you are not my mother, 

But as I am not your son, 
Ah ! that is another matter : 

So, may be, I '11 give you one. 

Leland's Anglo-Romany Songs. 



28 OUT OF THE HEART 



LOVE. 

WHEN daffodils began to blow, 
And apple-blossoms thick to snow 
Upon the brown and breaking mould, — 
'T was in the spring, — we kissed and sighed 
And loved, and heaven and earth defied, 
We were so young and bold. 

The fluttering bob-link dropped his song, 
The first young swallow curved along, 

The daisy stared in sturdy pride, 
When, loitering on, we plucked the flowers, 
But dared not own those thoughts of ours 

Which yet we could not hide. 

Tiptoe you bent the lilac spray 
And shook its rain of dew away 

And reached it to me with a smile: 
" Smell that, how full of spring it is " — 
'T is now as full of memories 

As 't was of dew erewhile. 

Your hand I took, to help you down 
The broken wall, from stone to stone, 

Across the shallow bubbling brook. 
Ah ! what a thrill went from that palm, 
That would not let my blood be calm, 

And through my pulses shook. 



A PEARL — A GIRL 29 

Often our eyes met as we turned, 

And both our cheeks with passion burned, 

And both our hearts grew riotous, 
Till, as we sat beneath the grove, 
I kissed you — whispering, " We love " — 

As thus I do — and thus. 

When passion had found utterance, 
Our frightened hearts began to glance 

Into the Future's every day; 
And how shall we our love conceal, 
Or dare our passion to reveal, — 

" We are too young,' 1 they '11 say.- 

Alas ! we are not now too young, 
Yet love to us hath safely clung, 

Despite of sorrow, years, and care — 
But ah ! we have not what we had, 
We cannot be so free, so glad, 

So foolish as we were. 

William Wetmore Story. 



A PEARL — A GIRL. 

A SIMPLE ring with a single stone, 
To the vulgar eye no stone of price : 
Whisper the right word, — that alone, — 
Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice, 
And lo ! you are lord (says an Eastern scroll) 
Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole, 
Through the power in a pearL 



30 OUT OF THE HEART. 

A woman ('tis I this time that say), 

With little the world counts worthy praise : 

Utter the true word, — out and away 
Escapes her soul : I am wrapt in blaze, 

Creation's lord, of heaven and earth 

Lord whole and sole — by a minute's birth, 
Through the love in a girl. 

Robert Browning* 



WHAT ELSE? 

THEY walked together, in the dusk, 
Along the garden's shrubbery-edge ; 
The heavy roses' scattered musk 

Blew faint across the cedar-hedge : 
A spotted snake came gliding through : — 

To shield her from imagined harms, 
What should he do, what could he do, 
But take her safe into his arms ? 

While for one happy moment still 

Her head was leaning on his breast. 
He felt a little tremor thrill 

The hand against his shoulder prest : 
The parted lips were trembling too : — 

Some feeling for her fears to show, 
What should he do, what could he do, 

But kiss her ere he let her go ? 

Redder than in the garden bed 

The roses blossomed to her cheek ; 



EARLY LOVE. 3 1 

"You wicked, wicked cheat ! " she said, 
Soon as the injured lips could speak. 

Lest he should prove her charge for true, 
And seem the most depraved of men, 

What should he do, what could he do, 
But give her back the kiss again ? 

Kate Putnam Osgood. 



AMOR OMNIA VINCIT. 

WHEN, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, 
I all alone beweep my outcast state 
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries 
And look upon myself, and curse my fate. 
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, 
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
With what I most enjoy contented least; 
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
Haply I think on thee, — and then my state, 
Like to the lark at break of day arising 
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate ; 
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings 
That then I scorn to change my state with kings, 

William Shakspere. 

EARLY LOVE 

AH ! I remember well (and how can I 
But evermore remember well ?) when first 
Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was 
The flame we felt ; when as we sat and sighed 



32 OUT OF THE HEART 

And looked upon each other, and conceived 
Not what we ailed, yet something we did ail 
And yet were well, and yet we were not well, 
And what was our disease we could not tell. 
Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look ; and thus 
In that first garden of our simpleness 
We spent our childhood. But when years began 
To reap the fruit of knowledge, — ah, how then 
Would she with sterner looks, with graver brow. 
Check my presumption and my forwardness ! 
Yet still would give me flowers, still would show 
What she would have me, yet not have me know. 

Samuel Daniel. 



AN OLD LOVER. 

HOW many new years have grown old 
Since first your servant old was new ! 
How many long hours have I told 

Since first my love was vowed to you ! 
And yet, alas ! she doth not know 
Whether her servant love or no. 

How many walls as white as snow, 
And windows clear as any glass, 

Have I conjured to tell you so, 
Which faithfully performed was ! 

And yet you '11 swear you do not know 

Whether your servant love or no. 



TOUJOURS AMOUR. 33 

How often bath my pale lean face, 

With true characters of my love, 
Petitioned to you for grace, 

Whom neither sighs nor tears can move ! 
O cruel, yet you do not know 
Whether your servant love or no ? 

And wanting oft a better token, 
I have been fain to send my heart, 

Which now your cold disdain hath broken, 
Nor can you heal 't by any art : 

O look upon 't and you shall know 

Whether your servant love or no. 

Robert Jones : Elizabethan Song Book. 



TOUJOURS AMOUR, 

PRITHEE tell me, Dimple-Chin, 
At what age does Love begin ? 
Your blue eyes have scarcely seen 
Summers three, my fairy queen, 
But a miracle of sweets, 
Soft approaches, sly retreats, 
Show the little archer there, 
Hidden in your pretty hair; 
When didst learn a heart to win ? 
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin ! 
3 



34 OUT OF THE HEART. 

" Oh ! M the rosy lips reply, 
" I can't tell you if I try. 
*T is so long I can't remember : 
Ask some younger lass than I." 

Tell, O tell me, Grizzled Face, 
Do your heart and head keep pace? 
When does hoary Love expire, 
When do frosts put out the fire? 
Can its embers burn below 
All that chill December snow ? 
Care you still soft hands to press, 
Bonny heads to smooth and bless ? 
When does Love give up the chase ? 
Tell, O tell me, Grizzled Face ! 

" Ah ! " the wise old lips reply, 
" Youth may pass and strength may die ; 
But of Love I can't foretoken : 
Ask some older sage than I." 

Edmund Clarence Stedman. 



LOVERS. 

HE gather'd blue forget-me-nots, 
To fling them laughing on her knee. 
She cried, " Ah, no ; if thou canst go, 
Ah, love, thou shalt forgotten be ! " 



MY STAR. 35 

He gather'd golden buttercups, 
That grew so very fresh and free. 

" Ah, happy plays, in childish days, 
When buttercups were gold to me ! M 

He gather'd little meadow-sweet 
And hid it where she could not see. 

She peeped about and found it out, 
And laugh'd aloud, and so did he. 

He gather'd shining silver-weed ; 

He stole the heather from the bee : 

Amid the grass the minutes pass. 

And twilight lingers on the lea. 

Anon. 



A 1 



MY STAR. 

LL that I know 
Of a certain star, 
Is, it can throw 

(Like the angled spar) 
Now a dart of red, 

Now a dart of blue, 
Till my friends have said 
They would fain see, too, 
My star that dartles the red and the blue ! 
Then it stops like a bird, — like a flower, hangs furled ; 
They must solace themselves with the Saturn 
above it. 
What matter to me if their star is a world ? 

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it 

Robert Browning. 



36 OUT OF THE HEART. 



ANN HATHAWAY. 

WOULD ye be taught, ye feathered throng, 
With love's sweet notes to grace your song, 
To pierce the heart with thrilling lay : 
Listen to mine Ann Hathaway. 
She hath a way to sing so clear, 
Phcebus might wondering stop to hear. 
To melt the sad, make blithe the gay ; 
And Nature charm, Ann hath a way. 

She hath a way, 

Ann Hathaway; 
To breathe delight, Ann hath a way. 

When envy's breath and rancorous tooth 

Do soil and bite fair worth and truth, 

And merit to distress betray : 

To soothe the heart, Ann hath a way. 

She hath a way to chase despair, 

To heal all grief, to cure all care, 

Turn foulest night to fairest day ; 

Thou know'st, fond heart, Ann hath a way. 

She hath a way, 

Ann Hathaway; 
To make grief bliss, Ann hath a way. 

Talk not of gems, the orient list, 
The diamond, topaz, amethyst, 
The emerald mild, the ruby gay; 
Talk of my gem, Ann Hathaway ! 






FATE. 37 

She hath a way, with her bright eye, 
Their various lustre to defy, — 
The jewels she, and the foil they, 
So sweet to look, Ann hath a way, 

She hath a way, 

Ann Hathaway ; 
To shame bright gems, Ann hath a way. 



But were it to my fancy given 

To rate her charms, I 'd call them heaven ; 

For though a mortal made of clay, 

Angels must love Ann Hathaway. 

She hath a way so to control, 

To rapture the imprisoned soul, 

And sweetest heaven on earth display, 

That to be heaven Ann hath a way. 

She hath a way, 

Ann Hathaway; 
To be heaven's self, Ann hath a way. 

William Shakspere (?). 



FATE. 

ALL unconscious I beheld her ; 
Knew not that my fate was nigh, - 
Fate that wears such various aspect 
To the victim's laughing eye. 



38 OUT OF THE HEART 

Poets, painters, still to paint her 
Dark and gloomy do their best; 

Were I painter, I would paint her 
All in cherry-color dressed. 

She should be a little maiden, 

Modest, shrinking, sweet and fair, 

At a party, playing forfeits, 

Looking, " Kiss me if you dare ! M 

Did I kiss you ? If I did n't, 
'T was the blunder of my life. 

Was the last the hundred millionth ? 
Just one more then, little wife. 

John W. Chadwick. 



FATE. 

A FACE of a summer ago, 
Of a maid I met by the sea, 
Haunts me wherever I go, 
And is always looking at me 
With a curious constancy. 

And whether I will it or no, 

I cannot get rid of her gaze, 
Standing and looking so, 

With her modest and maidenly ways. 

And I would not the rest of my days. 

Merle St. Croix Wright. 



TRANSLATION FROM HEINE. 39 



THE WHISPERING GALLERY. 

SHE flushed and paled, and, bridling, raised her 
head: 
" How could you know that I was in distress, 
To come so far and timely with redress ? 
For well and close, I thought, I kept my dread 
From common scorn or pity." 

" So ? " he said, 
" I scarce can tell, and yet it seems no less 
Than that all circling winds and waters press 
To bring me tidings how your life is led ; 

" And I could hear the whisper of your name 
Around the world. If the whole earth should 
lie 
Between us, and you fled when peril came, 

I 'd feel your foot-beats throb, I think, and fly, 
And come through sea or waste or battle-flame, 
And thank God's favor in your cause to die." 

James T. McKay. 



TRANSLATION FROM HEINE. 

THE letter which you wrote me 
Disturbs me not a whit ; 
You '11 love no more, you tell me, — 
But there 's too much of it. 



40 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Twelve pages, fine and neatly, — 

A little manuscript ; 
One writes not so completely 

When love's true knot is slipped. 

Merle St. Croix Wright. 



OF THREE GIRLS AND THEIR TALK. 

BY a clear well, within a little field 
Full of green grass and flowers of every hue, 

Sat three young girls, relating (as I knew) 
Their loves. And each had twined a bough to shield 
Her lovely face ; and the green leaves did yield 

The golden hair their shadow ; while the two 

Sweet colors mingled, both blown lightly through 
With a soft wind forever stirred and still'd. 
After a while one of them said, 

(I heard her,) " Think ! If, ere the next hour struck, 

Each of our lovers should come here to-day, 
Think you that we should fly, or feel afraid ? n 

To whom the others answered, " From such luck 

A girl would be a fool to run away." 

Boccaccio. 



LOVE'S OMNIPRESENCE. 

WERE I as base as is the lowly plain, 
And you, my Love, as high as heaven above, 
Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain. 
Ascend to heaven, in honor of my Love. 



A MYSTERY. 4 1 

Were I as high as heaven above the plain, 
And you, my Love, as humble and as low 
As are the deepest bottoms of the main, 
Wheresoe'er you were, with you my Love should go. 

Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies, 

My love should shine on you like to the sun, 

And look upon you with ten thousand eyes 

Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were done. 

Wheresoe'er I am, below, or else above you, 
Wheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly love you. 

Joshua Sylvester. 



A MYSTERY. 

THE love wherewith my heart is big for thee, 
Hath found no home with cowards or with 
slaves ; 
It blooms a deathless flower among the free, 
And on untrodden heights unbroken waves. 

No little heart can hold it, for it springs 
Twinned with eternity and scorn of death, 

Feeding on hopes and high imaginings 
That fail not with our fitful human breath. 

With those sweet strivings of the blood that stir 
Our souls in youth, and make our manhood great, 

By interchange of love and life with her 
Who clings to us in bonds of equal fate, 



42 OUT OF THE HEART. 

This passion hath no part — nor on the roots 
Of sense and yearning stationed, nor upborne 

By tenderness ; nor are its sterner fruits 

Shown in dear kisses given at night or morn. 

Be it enough that thou and I are one, 

That years and days seem nothing in the shine 

Of that perpetual and unsinking sun 

Which nerves our souls with energy divine. 

If tongue might tell the mystery I mean, 
Then all the world would love perchance like us ; 

But should these lines by the great world be seen, 
They 'd move mere laughter. Well : 't is better thus. 
John Addixgton Symonds. 



THE DIFFICULTY. 

TRANSLATED FROM HEINE. 

ABOUT my Darling's lovely eyes 
I 've made no end of verses ; 
About her precious little mouth. 
Songs, which each voice rehearses ; 
About my Darling's little cheek, 
I wrote a splendid sonnet ; 
And, — if she only had a heart, 
I 'd write an ode upon it. 

James Freeman Clarke. 



RUTH. 43 



RUTH. 

SHE stood breast-high amid the corn, 
Clasped by the golden light of morn, 
Like the sweetheart of the sun, 
Who many a glowing kiss had won. 

On her cheek an autumn flush, 
Deeply ripened ; — such a blush 
In the midst of brown was born, 
Like red poppies grown with corn. 

Round her eyes her tresses fell, 
Which were blackest none could tell ; 
But long lashes veiled a light 
That had else been all too bright. 

And her hat, with shady brim, 
Made her tressy forehead dim ; 
Thus she stood amid the stooks, 
Praising God with sweetest looks. 

" Sure," I said, " Heaven did not mean 
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean ; 
Lay thy sheaf ad own and come, 
Share my harvest and my home." 

Thomas Hood. 



44 OUT OF THE HEART 



HOW MANY TIMES. 

HOW many times do I love thee, dear ? 
Tell me how many thoughts there be 
In the atmosphere 
Of a new-fallen year, 
Whose white and sable hours appear 

The latest flake of Eternity : 
So many times do I love thee, dear. 

How many times do I love, again ? 
Tell me how many beads there are 
In a silver chain 
Of the evening rain, 
Unravelled from the tumbling main, 

And threading the eye of a yellow star : 
So many times do I love, again. 

Thomas Lovell Beddoes. 



ASK ME NO MORE. 

ASK me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; 
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the 
shape, 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 
But, O too fond, when have I answered thee ? 
Ask me no more. 



KISSING HER HAIR. 45 

Ask me no more: what answer should I give? 
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye : 
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die ! 

Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more : thy fate and mine are sealed : 
I strove against the stream, and all in vain: 
Let the great river take me to the main : 
Xo more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
Ask me no more. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



KISSING HER HAIR. 

KISSING her hair, I sat against her feet: 
Wove and unwove it, — wound and found it 
sweet ; 
Made fast therewith her hands, drew down her eyes, 
Deep as deep flowers, and dreamy like dim skies; 
With her own tresses bound, and found her fair, — 
Kissing her hair. 

Sleep were no sweeter than her face to me, — 
Sleep of cold sea-bloom under the cold sea : 
What pain could get between my face and hers? 
What new sweet thing would Love not relish worse ? 
Unless perhaps white death has kissed me there, — 
Kissing her hair. 
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 



46 OUr OF THE HEART. 



ONE WORD IS TOO OFTEN PROFANED. 

ONE word is too often profaned 
For me to profane it, 
One feeling too falsely disdain'd 

For thee to .disdain it. 
One hope is too like despair 
For prudence to smother, 
And Pity from thee more dear 
Than that from another. 

I can give not what men call love, 

But wilt thou accept not 
The worship the heart lifts above 

And the heavens reject not: 
The desire of the moth for the star, 

Of the night for the morrow, 
The devotion to something afar 

From the sphere of our sorrow ? 

Percy Bysshe Shelley. 



"LOVE DOTH TO HER EYES REPAIR." 

Translated front Ritckert . 

WHY ask of others what they cannot say, — 
Others, who for thy good have little care? 
Come close, dear friend, and learn a better way; 
Look in my eyes, and read my story there ! 



HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD. 47 

Trust not thine own proud wit; 'tis idle dreaming ! 

The common gossip of the street forbear ; 
Nor even trust my acts or surface seeming : 

Ask only of my eyes ; my truth is there. 

My lips refuse an answer to thy boldness ; 

Or with false, cruel words deny thy prayer, — 
Believe them not, I hate them for their coldness ! 

Look in my eyes ; my love is written there. 

James Freeman Clarke, 



THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD. 1 

A WEEK ago ; and I am almost glad 
to have him now gone for this little while, 
that I may think of him and tell myself 
what to be his means, now that I am his, 
and know if mine is love enough for him, 
and make myself believe it all is true. 

A week ago ; and it seems like a life, 
and I have not yet learned to know myself : 
I am so other than I was, so strange, 
grown younger and grown older all in one ; 
and I am not so sad and not so gay ; 
and I think nothing, only hear him think. 

And did I love him from the day we met ? 
but I more gladly danced with some one else 

1 Parts of a poem. The peculiar printing is preserved. 



48 OUT OF THE HEART. 

who waltzed more smoothly and was merrier : 
and did I love him when he first came here ? 
but I more gladly talked with some one else 
whose words were readier and who sought me more. 
When did I love ? How did it begin ? 

Ah, well, I would that I could love him more, 
and not be only happy as I am ; 
I would that I could love him to his worth, 
with that forgetting all myself in him, 
that subtle pain of exquisite excess, 
that momentary infinite sharp joy, 
I know by books but cannot teach my heart : 
and yet I think my love must needs be love, 
since he can read me through — oh happy strange, 
my thoughts that were my secrets all for me 
grown instantly his open easy book ! — 
since he can read me through, and is content. 

And shall I for so many coming days 
be flower and sweetness to him ? O pale flower, 
grow, grow, and blossom out, and fill the air, 
feed on his richness, grow, grow, blossom out, 
and fill the air, and be enough for him. 

My love, my love, my love ! And I shall be 
so much to him, so almost everything : 
and I shall be the friend whom he will trust, 
and I shall be the child whom he will teach, 
and I shall be the servant he will praise, 



HIS LADY'S PRAISE. 49 

and I shall be the mistress he will love, 
and I shall be his wife. O days to come, 
will ye not pass like gentle rhythmic steps 
that fall to sweetest music noiselessly ? 

Together always, that was what he said ; 
together always. O dear coming days ! 
O dear dear present days that pass too fast, 
although they bring such rainbow morrows on ! 
that pass so fast, and yet, I know not why, 
seem always to encompass so much time. 
And I should fear I were too happy now, 
and making this poor world too much my Heaven, 
but that I feel God nearer, and it seems 
as if I had learned His love better too. 

Augusta Webster. 



HIS LADY'S PRAISE. 

MY lady carries love within her eyes ; 
All that she looks on is made pleasanter ; 
Upon her path men turn to gaze at her ; 
He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise, 
And droops his troubled visage, full of sighs, 
And of his evil heart is then aware : 
Hate loves, and pride becomes a worshipper. 
O women, help to praise her in somewise. 
Humbleness, and the hope that hopeth well, 
By speech of hers into the mind are brought, 
4 



50 OUT OF THE HEART 

And who beholds is blessed oftenwhiles, 
The look she hath when she a little smiles 
Cannot be said, nor holden in the thought ; 
*T is such a new and generous miracle. 

Dante : Vita Nuova. 



PRISCILLA. 

MY little Love sits in the shade 
Beneath the climbing roses, 
And gravely sews in a half -dream 
The dainty measures of her seam 
Until the twilight closes. 

I look and long, yet have no care 
To break her maiden musing ; 
I idly toss my book away, 
And watch the pretty fingers stray 
Along their task confusing. 

The dews fall, and the sunset light 
Goes creeping o'er the meadows, 
And still, with serious eyes cast down, 
She gravely sews her wedding-gown 
Among the growing shadows. 

I needs must gaze, though on her cheek 

The bashful roses quiver — 
She is so modest, simple, sweet, 
That I, poor pilgrim, at her feet 

Would fain adore forever. 



A BROOK IN YOUR LITTLE HEART 5 1 

A heavenly peace dwells in her heart ; 

Her love is yet half duty, 
Serene and serious, still and quaint, 
She 's partly woman, partly saint, 

This Presbyterian beauty. 

She is so shy that all my prayers 

Scarce win a few small kisses — 
She lifts her lovely eyes to mine 
And softly grants, with blush divine, 
Such slender grace as this is. 

I watch her with a tender care 
And joy not free from sadness — 

For what am I that I should take 

This gentle soul and think to make 
Its future days all gladness ? 

Can I fulfil those maiden dreams 

In some imperfect fashion ? 
I am no hero, but I know 
I love you, Dear — the rest I throw 

Upon your sweet compassion. 

Ellen Mackay Hutchinson. 



"HAVE YOU GOT A BROOK IN YOUR 
LITTLE HEART?" 

HAVE you got a brook in your little heart, 
Where bashful flowers blow, 
And blushing birds go down to drink, 
And shadows tremble so ? 



52 OUT OF THE HEART 

And nobody knows, so still it flows, 
That any brook is there ; 
And yet your little draught of life 
Is daily drunken there. 

Then look out for the little brook in March, 
When the rivers overflow, 
And the snows come hurrying from the hills, 
And the bridges often go. 

And later, in August it may be, 
When the meadows parching lie, 
Beware, lest this little brook of life 
Some burning noon go dry I 

Emily Dickinson. 



MINE. 

OHOW my heart is beating as her name I keep 
repeating, 
And I drink up joy like wine : 
O how my heart is beating as her name I keep 
repeating, 
For the lovely girl is mine ! 
She 's rich, she 's fair, beyond compare, 
Of noble mind, serene and kind — 
And how my heart is beating as her name I keep 
repeating, 
For the lovely girl is mine. 



DITTY. 



53 



O how my heart is beating as her name I keep 

repeating, 
In a music soft and fine ; 
O how my heart is beating as her name I keep 

repeating, 
For the girl I love is mine. 
She owns no lands, has no white hands, 
Her lot is poor, her life obscure ; — 
Yet how my heart is beating as her name I keep 

repeating, 



For the girl I love is mine. 



Dinah Mulock Craik. 



DITTY. 

MY true love hath my heart and I have his, 
By just exchange one to the other given : 
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss ; 
There never was a better bargain driven ! 
My true love hath my heart, and I have his. 

His heart in me keeps him and me in one, 
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides : 
He loves my heart, for once it was his own, 
I cherish his because in me it bides : 

My true love hath my heart, and I have his. 

Sir Philip Sidney. 



54 OUT OF THE HEART. 



THE DIFFERENCE. 

IT is the season now to go 
About the country high and low, 
Among the lilacs hand in hand, 
And two by two in fairy land. 

The brooding boy, the sighing maid, 
Wholly fain and half afraid, 
Now meet along the hazel'd brook 
To pass and linger, pause and look. 

A year ago, and blithely paired, 
Their rough-and-tumble play they shared ; 
They kissed and quarrelled, laughed and cried, 
A year ago at Eastertide. 

With bursting heart, with fiery face, 

She strove against him in the race ; 

He unabashed her garter saw, 

That now would touch her skirts with awe. 

Now by the stile ablaze she stops, 
And his demurer eyes he drops ; 
Now they exchange averted sighs, 
Or stand and marry silent eyes. 

And he to her a hero is, 
And sweeter she than primroses ; 
Their common silence dearer far 
Than nightingale and mavis are. 



A RING POSY. . 55 

Now when they sever wedded hands, 
Joy trembles in their bosom-strands, 
And lovely laughter leaps and falls 
Upon their lips in madrigals. 

Robert Louis Stevenson 



A PLEASANT SONG. 

THE nightingale has a lyre of gold, 
The lark's is a clarion call, 
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute, 
But I love him best of all. 

For his song is all of the joy of life, 
And we, in the mad spring weather, 

We two have listened till he sang 
Our hearts and lips together. 

William Ernest Henley. 



A RING POSY. 

JESS and Jill are pretty girls, 
Plump and well to do, 
In a cloud of windy curls : 

Yet I know who 
Loves me more than curls or pearls. 

I 'm not pretty, not a bit ; 

Thin and sallow-pale ; 
When 1 trudge along the street 

I don't need a veil ; 
Yet I have one fancy hit. 



56 OUT OF THE HEART 

Jess and Jill can trill and sing 

With a flute-like voice, 
Dance as light as bird on wing, 

Laugh for careless joys : 
Yet 't is I who wear the ring. 

Jess and Jill will mate some day, 

Surely, surely ; 
Ripen on to June through May, 
While the sun shines make their hay, 

Slacken steps demurely : 
Yet even there I lead the way. 

Christina G. Rossetti. 



"MY LOVE FOR THEE DOTH MARCH LIKE 
ARMED MEN." 

MY love for thee doth march like armed men 
Against a queenly city they would take. 
Along the army's front its banners shake ; 
Across the mountain and the sun-smit plain 

It stedfast sweeps as sweeps the stedfast rain ; 
And now the trumpet makes the sjtill air quake, 
And now the thundering cannon doth awake 
Echo on echo, echoing loud again. 

But, lo ! the conquest higher than bard had sung; 
Instead of answering cannon comes a small 
White flag ; the iron gates are open flung, 

And flowers along the invaders' pathway fall. 
The city's conquerors feast their foes among, 
And their brave flags are trophies on her wall. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



THE YEAR THAT'S COME AND GONE. 57 



THE WAYS OF LOVE. 

HO W do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. 
I love thee to the level of every day's 
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise ; 
I love thee with the passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith ; 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



IN THE YEAR THAT'S COME AND GONE. 

IN the year that *s come and gone, love, his flying- 
feather 
Stooping slowly, gave us heart, and bade us walk 

together. 
In the year that's coming on, though many a troth be 

broken, 
We at least will not forget aught that love hath spoken. 



58 OUT OF THE HEART. 

In the year that's come and gone, dear, we wove a 

tether 
All of gracious words and thoughts, binding two 

together. 
In the year that 's coming on, with its wealth of roses, 
We shall weave it stronger yet, ere the circle closes. 

In the year that 's come and gone, in the golden 

weather, 
Sweet, my sweet, we swore to keep the watch of life 

together. 
In the year that 's coming on, rich in joy and sorrow, 
We shall light our lamp, and wait life's mysterious 

morrow. 

William Ernest Henley. 



LOVE'S VICTORY. 

TWICE had the changing seasons run their round, 
Bringing to mortals happiness and tears ; 
The third year came, and with it heaven itself 
Took wing to fold its pinions on my heart ! 
Then in the self-same eyes I gazed again, 
To read there love, immeasurable love, 
In sanctity of virgin scripture writ ; 
And words were murmured, words that passed her lips 
To pass again no others, but one breast 
Still echoes with them, as with rolling hymns 
And hallelujahs some high -vaulted roof, 
Beneath which joy in praise its wealth outpours. 



FAR, AND YET NEAR. Zf) 

Then, as high-rising tides might lift a barque, 

That long had waited, and the manners, 

Now homeward bound, with many a loud huzza, 

Run to the ropes together, all as one 

Lay hold, spread topsail and topgallant, set 

The royals, fix the booms, while every soul 

Bubbles with pleasure as before the prow 

The gamesome foam goes dancing, and the wake 

Grows white behind : so love and love's delight 

Swelled to uplift me on their wide expanse, 

While all the winds of promise blew me home. 

And when the ocean of that summer's joy 

Beat on the shores of autumn, then, there came 

My heart to port, with all its argosies 

Of hopes that furled their sails in blessedness. 

Nor yet I called her mine. How could I dare ? 

Mine as the sky the eagle's, when he floats 

Amid its deeps ! Mine as the sun of June 

Is propertied by the cup he paints with gold, 

Or morning by the birds, whose folded sleep 

Her soft ray touches till it flower in song ! 

David A. Wasson. 



FAR, AND YET NEAR. 

GO from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 
Hence forward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
Alone upon the threshold of my door 
Of individual life, I shall command 



60 OUT OF THE HEART 

The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
Serenely in the sunshine as before, 
Without the sense of that which I forbore, . . 
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land 
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine 
With pulses that beat double. What I do 
And what I dream include thee, as the wine 
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue 
God for myself, He hears that name of thine, 
And sees within my eyes, the tears of two. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



BY THE SWINGING SEAS. 

SHE sauntered by the swinging seas, 
A jewel glittered at her ear, 
And, teasing her along, the breeze 
Brought many a rounded grace more near. 

So passing, one with wave and beam, 

She left, for memory to caress, 
A laughing thought, a golden gleam, 

A hint of hidden loveliness. 

William Ernest Henley. 



TO A GIRL. 6 1 

"LAST NIGHT IN BLUE MY LITTLE LOVE 
WAS DRESSED." 

LAST night in blue my little love was dressed ; 
And as she walked the room in maiden grace, 
I looked into her fair and smiling face, 
And said that blue became my darling best. 
But when, this morn, a spotless virgin vest 
And robe of white did the blue one displace, 
She seemed a pearl-tinged cloud, and I was — space ! 
She filled my soul as cloud shapes fill the West. 

And so it is that, changing day by day, — 
Changing her robe, but not her loveliness, — 

Whether the gown be blue, or white, or gray, 
I deem that one her most becoming dress. 

The truth is this : In any robe or way, 

I love her just the same, and cannot love her less ! 
Charles Henry Webb ("John Paul") 

TO A GIRL. 

THOU art so very sweet and fair, 
With such a heaven in thine eyes, 
It almost seems an overcare 
To ask thee to be good or wise. 

As if a little bird were blam'd 

Because its song unthinking flows ; 

As if a rose should be asham'd 

Of being nothing but a rose. 

Anon. 



62 OUT OF THE HEART 



AGRO-DOLCE. 

ONE kiss from all others prevents me, 
And sets all my pulses astir, 
And burns on my lips and torments me : 
'T is the kiss that I fain would give her. 

One kiss for all others requites me, 

Although it is never to be, 
And sweetens my dreams and invites me : 

'T is the kiss that she dare not give me. 

James Russell Lowell. 



CAPRICE. 

SHE hung the cage at the window : 
" If he goes by," she said, 
"He will hear my robin singing, 

And when he lifts his head, 
I shall be sitting here to sew, 
And he will bow to me I know/' 

The robin sang a love-sweet song, 
The young man raised his head ; 

The maiden turned away and blushed : 
" I am a fool ! " she said, 

And went on broidering in silk 

A pink-eyed rabbit, white as milk. 



CAPRICE. 63 

The young man loitered slowly 

By the house three times that day ; 

She took the bird from the window : 
" He need not look this way." 

She sat at her piano long, 

And sighed, and played a death-sad song. 

But when the day w T as done, she said, 

" I wish that he w^ould come ! 
Remember, Mary, if he calls 

To-night — I 'm not at home." 
So when he rang, she went — the elf ! — 
She went and let him in herself. 

They sang full long together 

Their songs love-sweet, death-sad ; 

The robin woke from his slumber, 
And rang out, clear and glad. 

" Now go ! " she coldly said ; " 't is late ; " 

And followed him — to latch the gate. 

He took the rosebud from her hair, 
While " You shall not ! " she said ; 

He closed her hand within his own, 
And, while her tongue forbade, 

Her will was darkened in the eclipse 

Of blinding love upon his lips. 

William D. Ho wells. 



64 OUT OF THE HEART. 



EVES DAUGHTER. 

I WAITED in the little sunny room : 
The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play, 
The white rose on the porch was all in bloom, 

And out upon the bay 
I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come. 

" Such an old friend, — she would not make me stay 
While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo, 

Danae in her shower ! and fit to slay 
All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow : 

Gold hair, that streamed away 
As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow. 

" She would not make me wait ! " but well I know 

She took a good half-hour to loose and lay 
Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so ! 

Edward Rowland Sill. 



ST. GEORGE'S, HANOVER SQUARE. 

SHE pass'd up the aisle on the arm of her sire, 
A delicate lady in bridal attire, 
Fair emblem of virgin simplicity ; 
Half London was there, and, my word, there were few 
That stood by the altar, or hid in a pew, 
But envied Lord Nigel's felicity. 



THE LOVE-LETTER. 6$ 

Beautiful bride ! So meek in thy splendor, 
So frank in thy love, and its trusting surrender, 

Departing you leave us the town dim ! 
May happiness wing to thy bower, unsought, 
And may Nigel, esteeming his bliss as he ought, 

Prove worthy thy worship, — confound him ! 

Frederick Locker. 



THE LOVE-LETTER. 

WARMED by her hand and shadowed by her hair 
As close she leaned and poured her heart 
through thee, 
Whereof the articulate throbs accompany 
The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness 

fair, — 
Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware, — 
Oh let thy silent song disclose to me 
That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree 
Like married music in Love's answering air. 

Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought, 
Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd, 
And her breast's secrets peered into her breast; 
When, through eyes raised an instant, her soul sought 
My soul, and from the sudden confluence caught 
The words that made her love the loveliest. 

Dante G. Rossettc. 



66 OUT OF THE HEART 



SUMMER IS COMING. 

" QUMMER is coming, summer is coming. 

O I know it, I know it, I know it. 
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again," 

Yes, my wild little Poet. 

Sing the new year in under the blue. 

Last year you sang it as gladly. 
" New, new, new, new ! " Is it then so new 

That you should carol so madly ? 

" Love again, song again, nest again, young again ! " 

Never a prophet so crazy ! 
And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend, 

See, there is hardly a daisy. 

" Here again, here, here, here, happy year ! n 

O warble unchidden, unbidden! 
Summer is coming, is coming, my dear, 

And all the winters are hidden. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



UMPIRES. 

WE chose our blossoms, sitting on the grass ; 
His, Marguerites, with sunny, winsome faces, 
Mine, the bright clover, with its statelier graces. 
" Let these decide the argument, my lass; 



UMPIRES. 67 

We'll watch," said he, "the light-winged breezes pass 
And note which first the earliest whiff displaces : 
If it be daisy, yours the sore disgrace is, 

And if it 's clover, then I yield, alas ! " 

The lightsome quarrel was but half in jest ; 

I would go homeward; he would sit and rest — 

The foolish cousin whom I would not wed. 

Smiling we waited ; not a word we said, 

In earnest he, and I quite debonair — 

But oh, the stillness of that summer air ! 

So still it was — so still with quiet heat, 

The blossom lately from the brooklet quaffing 
Ceased its brisk dipping and sly telegraphing, 

And scorned the blossom opposite to greet. 

The very grass stood breathless at our feet ; 
When suddenly, our weighty silence chaffing, 
The leaves around broke out in muffled laughing, 

And something stirred the fickle Marguerite ! 

" Your flower," I cried. — " Ah, now it bends quite 

over ! " 
M Oho ! " he answered — " see your nodding clover ! " 

In truth, those silly blossoms fluttered so, 

I really knew not if to stay or go. — 

And so it happened that the twilight found me 

Still resting there, — and Charley's arm around me. 

Mary Mapes Dodge. 



68 OUT OF THE HEART 



IN THREE DAYS. 

SO, I shall see her in three days 
And just one night, but nights are short, 
Then two long hours, and that is morn. 
See how I come, unchanged, unworn — 
Feel, where my life broke off from thine, 
How fresh the splinters keep and fine, — 
Only a touch and we combine ! 

Too long, this time of year, the days ! 
But nights — at least the nights are short. 
As night shows where her one moon is, 
A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss, 
So, life's night gives my lady birth 
And my eyes hold her ! what is worth 
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth ? 

O loaded curls, release your store 
Of warmth and scent as once before 
The tingling hair did, lights and darks 
Out-breaking into fairy sparks 
When under curl and curl I pried 
After the warmth and scent inside, 
Thro' lights and darks how manifold — 
The dark inspired, the light controlled ! 
As early Art embrowned the gold. 

What great fear — should one say, " Three days 
That change the world, might change as well 



COMING IN THE FALL. 69 

Your fortune; and if joy delays, 

Be happy that no worse befell. 1 ' 

What small fear — if another says, 

'• Three days and one short night beside 

May throw no shadow on your ways ; 

But years must teem with change untried, 

With chance not easily defied, 

With an end somewhere undescried." 

No fear ! — or if a fear be born 

This minute, it dies out in scorn. 

Fear? I shall see her in three days 

And one night, now the nights are short, 

Then just two hours, and that is morn. 

Robert Browning. 



IF YOU WERE COMING IN THE FALL." 

IF you were coming in the fall, 
I 'd brush the summer by 
With half a smile and half a spurn, 
As housewives do a fly. 

If I could see you in a year, 

I 'd wind the months in balls, 
And put them each in separate drawers. 

Until their time befalls. 

If only centuries delayed, 

I -d count them on my hand, 
Subtracting till my fingers dropped 

Into Van Diemen's land. 



yo OUT OF THE HEART 

If certain, when this life was out, 
That yours and mine should be, 

I "d toss it yonder like a rind, 
And taste eternity. 

But now, all ignorant of the length 

Of time's uncertain wing, 
It goads me, like the goblin bee 

That will not state its sting. 

Emily Dickinson. 



"LOVE ME NOT, LOVE, FOR THAT I FIRST 
LOVED THEE." 

LOVE me not, Love, for that I first loved thee, 
Nor love me, Love, for thy sweet pity's sake, 
In knowledge of the mortal pain and ache 
Which is the fruit of love's blood-veined tree. 

Let others for my love give love to me : 
From other souls, oh, gladly will I take. 
This burning, heart dry thirst of love to slake, 
What seas of human pity there may be ! 

Nay, nay, I care no more how love may grow, 
So that I hear thee answer to my call ! 
Love me because my piteous tears do flow, 

Or that my love for thee did first befall. 
Love me or late or early, fast or slow : 
But love me, Love, for love is one and all ! 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



THE PREGNANT COMMENT J I 



TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME. 

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may, 
Old time is still a-flying : 
And this same flower that smiles to-day, 
To-morrow will be dying. 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, 

The higher he 's a getting, 
The sooner will his race be run, 

And nearer he 's to setting. 

That age is best which is the first, 
When youth and blood are warmer ; 

But being spent, the worse and worst 
Times still succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time, 

And while ye may, go marry; 
For having lost but once your prime, 

You may forever tarry. 

Robert Herrick. 



THE PREGNANT COMMENT. 

OPENING one day a book of mine, 
I absent, Hester found a line 
Praised with a pencil mark, and this 
She left transfigured w ft n a kiss. 



7 '2 OUT OF THE HEART. 

When next upon the page I chance, 
Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses dance, 
And whirl my fancy where it sees 
Pan piping 'neath Arcadian trees, 
Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse, 
Still young and glad as Homer's verse. 
" What mean," I ask, "these sudden joys ? 
This feeling fresher than a boy's ? 
What makes this line, familiar long, 
New as the first bird's April song? 
I could, with sense illumined thus, 
Clear doubtful texts in ^Eschylus ! " 

Laughing, one day she gave the key, 
My riddle's open sesame ; 
Then added, with a smile demure, 
Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure, 
" If what I left there give you pain, 
You — you — can take it off again ; 
'T was for ?ny poet, not for him, 
Your Doctor Donne there ! " 

Earth grew dim 
And wavered in a golden mist, 
As rose, not paper leaves I kissed. 
Donne, you forgive ? I let you keep 
Her precious comment, poet deep. 

James Russell Lowell. 



HER PERFECT PRAISE. 73 



FIRST, SECOND, THIRD. 

FIRST time he kissed me, he but only kissed 
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write, 
And ever since it grew more clean and white, 
Slow to world-greetings, . . . quick with its " Oh list," . . . 
When the angels speak. A ring of Amethyst 
I could not wear here plainer to my sight 
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height 
The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, 
Half falling on the hair, O beyond meed 1 
That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown, 
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. 
The third upon my lips was folded down 
In perfect, purple state! since when, indeed, 
I have been proud, and said, " My Love, my own." 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



HER PERFECT PRAISE. 

THERE 'S a woman like a dew-drop, she *s so purer 
than the purest ; 
And her noble heart 's the noblest, yes, and her sure 

faith 's the surest: 
And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on 

depth of lustre 
Hid i' the harebell, w T hile her tresses, sunnier than the 
wild grape cluster, 



74 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose- 
misted marble : 

Then her voice 's music . . . call it the well's bubbling, 
the bird's warble ! 

And this woman says, " My days were sunless and my 

nights were moonless, 
Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark s 

heart's outbreak tuneless, 
If you loved me not ' ' And I who — (ah, for words 

of flame !) adore her ! 
Who am mad to lay my spirit palpably before her — 
I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice 

takes me, 
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as 

hers she makes me! 

Robert Drowning. 



SONNET FROM PETRARCH. 

GENTLE seventy, repulses mild, 
Full of chaste love and pity sorrowing ; 
Graceful rebukes, that had the power to bring 
Back to itself a heart by dreams beguiled ; 
A tender voice, whose accents undefiled 
Held sweet restraints, all duty honoring; 
The bloom of virtue ; purity's sweet spring 
To cleanse away base thoughts and passions wild: 



AMY WEXTWORTH. 75 

Divinest eyes to make a lover's bliss, 
Whether to bridle in the wayward mind 
Lest its wild wanderings should the pathway miss, 

Or else its griefs to soothe, its wounds to bind, — 
This sweet completeness of thy life it is 
Which saved my soul ; no other peace I find. 

Thomas Wentworth Higginsox. 



AMY WENTWORTH. 

HER fingers shame the ivory keys 
They dance so light along ; 
The bloom upon her parted lips 
Is sweeter than the song. 

O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles ! 

Her thoughts are not of thee ; 
She better loves the salted wind, 

The voices of the sea. 

Her heart is like an outbound ship 

That at its anchor swings ; 
The murmur of the stranded shell 

Is in the song she sings. 

She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise, 

But dreams the while of one 
Who watches from his sea-blown deck 

The icebergs in the sun. 



76 OUT OF THE HEART 

She questions all the winds that blow, 

And every fog-wreath dim, 
And bids the sea-birds flying north 

Bear messages to him. 

She speeds them with the thanks of men 

He perilled life to save, 
And grateful prayers like holy oil 

To smooth for him the wave. 

Brown Viking of the fishing-smack ! 

Fair toast of all the town ! 
The skipper's jerkin ill beseems 

The lady's silken gown ! 

But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear 
For him the blush of shame 

Who dares to set his manly gifts 
Against her ancient name. 

The stream is brightest at its spring, 
And blood is not like wine ; 

Nor honored less than he who heirs 
Is he who founds a line. 

Full lightly shall the prize be won, 

If love be Fortune's spur; 
And never maiden stoops to him 

Who lifts himself to her. 



AMY WENTIVORTH. TJ 

Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street, 

With stately stairways worn 
By feet of old Colonial knights 

And ladies gentle born. 

Still green about its ample porch 

The English ivy twines, 
Trained back to show in English oak 

The herald's carven signs. 

And on her, from the wainscot old, 

Ancestral faces frown, — 
And this has worn the soldier's sword, 

And that the judge's gown. 

But, strong of will and proud as they, 

She walks the gallery floor 
As if she trod her sailor's deck 

By stormy Labrador ! 

The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery side, 

And green are Elliot's bowers ; 
Her garden is the pebbled beach, 

The mosses are her flowers. 

She looks across the harbor-bar 

To see the white gulls fly ; 
His greeting from the Northern sea 

Is in their clanging cry. 



78 OUT OF THE HEART. 

She hums a song, and dreams that he. 

As in its romance old, 
Shall homeward ride with silken sails 

And masts of beaten gold ! 

O. rank is good, and gold is fair, 

And high and low mate ill ; 
But love has never known a law 

Beyond its own sweet will ! 

John Greenleaf Whittier. 



UN BACIO DATO NON E MAI PERDUTO. 



BECAUSE we once drove together 
In the moonlight over the snow, 
With the sharp bells ringing their tinkling chime, 
So many a year ago, 

So. now, as I hear them jingle, 

The winter comes back again, 
Though the summer stirs in the heavy trees. 

And the wild rose scents the lane. 

We gather our furs around us, 

Our faces the keen air stings. 
And noiseless we fly o'er the snow-hushed world 

Almost as if we had wings. 



UN B AC 10 DA TO, ETC. jg 

Enough is the joy of mere living, 

Enough is the blood's quick thrill : 
We are simply happy, I care not why, 

We are happy beyond our will. 

The trees are with icicles jewelled, 

The walls are o'er-surfed with snow ; 
The houses with marble-whiteness are roofed, 

In their windows the home-lights glow. 

Through the tense, clear sky above us 

The keen stars flash and gleam, 
And wrapped in their silent shroud of snow 

The broad fields lie and dream. 

And jingling with low, sweet clashing 
Ring the bells as our good horse goes, 

And tossing his head, from his nostrils' red 
His frosty breath he blows. 

And closely you nestle against me, 

While around your waist my arm 
I have slipped — 't is so bitter, bitter cold — 

It is only to keep us warm. 

We talk, and then we are silent ; 

And suddenly — you know why — 
I stooped — could I help it ? You lifted your face — 

We kissed — there was nobody nigh. 



SO OUT OF THE HEART. 

I never told it — did you, dear ? — 

From that day unto this ; 
But my memory keeps in its inmost recess, 

Like a perfume, that innocent kiss. 

I dare say you have forgotten, 

'T was so many a year ago, 
Or you may not choose to remember it, 

Time may have changed you so. 

The world so chills us and kills us, 

Perhaps you may scorn to recall 
That n'ght, with its innocent impulse, 

Perhaps you '11 deny it all. 

But if, of that fresh sweet nature 

The veriest vestige survive, 
You remember that moment's madness, — 

You remember that moonlight drive. 

William Wetmore Story. 



THE DOORSTEP. 

THE conference-meeting through at last, 
We boys around the vestry waited 
To see the girls come tripping past, 
Like snow-birds willing to be mated. 

Not braver he that leaps the wall 

By level musket-flashes litten, 
Than I, that stepped before them all 

Who longed to see me get the mitten. 



THE DOORSTEP. 8 I 

But no, she blushed and took my arm ! 

We let the old folks have the highway, 
And started toward the Maple Farm 

Along a kind of lovers by-way. 

I can't remember what we said, 

'T was nothing worth a song or story ; 

Yet that rude path by which we sped 
Seemed all transformed and in a glory. 

The snow was crisp beneath our feet, 

The moon was full, the fields were gleaming; 

By hood and tippet sheltered sweet, 

Her face with youth and health w r as beaming. 

The little hand outside her muff, — 
- O sculptor, if you could but mould it ! — 
So lightly touched my jacket cuff, 
To keep it warm I had to hold it. 

To have her with me there alone, — 

'T was love and fear and triumph blended. 

At last we reached the worn foot-stone 
Where that delicious journey ended 

The old folks too w r ere almost home ; 

Her dimpled hand the latches fingered. 
We heard the voices nearer come, 

Yet on the doorstep still we lingered. 
6 



82 OUT OF THE HEART. 

She shook her ringlets from her hood, ■ 

And with a " Thank you, Ned," dissembled ; 

But yet I knew she understood 

With what a daring wish I trembled, 

A cloud passed kindly overhead, 

The moon was slyly peeping through it, 

Yet hid its face, as if it said, 

" Come, now or never ! do it ! do it I " 

My lips till then had only known 
The kiss of mother and of sister ; 

But somehow, full upon her own 

Sweet, rosy, darling mouth — I kissed her ! 

Perhaps 't was boyish love ; yet still, 

listless woman, weary lover ! 

To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill 

1 'd give — but who can live youth over ? 

Edmund Clarence Stedman. 



BEFORE THE GATE. 

THEY gave the whole long day to idle laughter, 
To fitful song and jest, 
To moods of soberness as idle, after, 
And silences, as idle too as the rest. 



BEFORE THE GATE. 83 

But when at last, upon their way returning, 

Taciturn, late, and loath, 
Through the broad meadow in the sunset burning, 

They reached the gate, one fine spell hindered 
them both. 

Her heart was troubled with a subtile anguish 

Such as but women know 
That wait, and lest love speak or speak not languish, 

And what they would, would rather they would 
not so. 

Till he said, — man-like, nothing comprehending 

Of all the wondrous guile 
That women won win themselves with, and bending 

Eyes of relentless asking on her the while, — 

"Ah, if beyond this gate the path united 

Our steps as far as death, 
And I might open it ! — " His voice, affrighted 

At its own daring, faltered under his breath. 

Then she — whom both his faith and fear enchanted 

Far beyond words to tell, 
Feeling her woman's finest wit had wanted 

The art he had that knew to blunder so well — 

Shyly drew near a little step, and mocking, 

" Shall we not be too late 
For tea ? " she said. " I 'm quite worn out with walking. 

Yes, thanks, your arm. And will you — open the 

gate ? " 

William D. Ho wells. 



84 OUT OF THE HEART. 



IN LOVE'S OWN TIME. 

HAD I but earlier known that from the eyes 
Of that bright soul that fires me like the sun, 
I might have drawn new strength my race to run, 
Burning as burns the phoenix ere it dies ; 

Even as the stag or lynx or leopard flies 
To seek his pleasure and his pain to shun, 
Each word, each smile of her would I have won, 
Flying where now sad age all flight denies. 

Yet why complain ? For even now I find 
In that glad angel's face, so full of rest, 
Health, and content, heart's ease and peace of mind. 

Perchance I might have been less simply blest, 
Finding her sooner : if 't is age alone 
That lets me soar with her to seek God's throne. 

Michael Angelo. 



GARDEN-FANCIES. 

THE FLOWER'S NAME. 

HERE 'S the garden she walked across, 
Arm in my arm, such a short while since : 
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss 

Hinders the hinges and makes them wince ! 
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, 

As back with that murmur the wicket swung; 
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned, 
To feed and forget it the leaves among. 



GARDEN-FANCIES. 85 

Down this side of the gravel-walk 

She went while her robe's edge brushed the box ; 
And here she paused in her gracious talk 

To point me a moth on the milk-white flox. 
Roses, ranged in valiant row, 

I will never think that she passed you by ! 
She loves you, noble roses, I know ; 

But yonder see, where the rock-plants lie ! 

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, 

Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim ; 
Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, 

Its soft meandering Spanish name. 
What a name ! was it love, or praise ? 

Speech half-asleep, or song half-awake ? 
I must learn Spanish, one of these days, 

Only for that slow sweet name's sake. 

Roses, if I live and do well, 

I may bring her, one of these days, 
To fix you fast with as fine a spell, 

Fit you each with his Spanish phrase ! 
But do not detain me now ; for she lingers 

There, like sunshine over the ground, 
And ever I see her soft white fingers 

Searching after the bud she found. 

Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not, 

Stay as you are and be loved forever ! 
Bud, if I kiss you 't is that you blow not, 

Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never ! 



86 OUT OF THE HEART. 

For while thus it pouts, her fingers wrestle, 
Twinkling the audacious leaves between, 

Till round they turn and down they nestle — 
Is not the dear mark still to be seen ? 

Where I find her not, beauties vanish ; 

Whither I follow her, beauties flee ; 
Is there no method to tell her in Spanish 

June 's twice June since she breathed it with me ? 
Come, bud, show me the least of her traces, 

Treasure my lady's lightest footfall — 
Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces — 

Roses, you are not so fair after all. 

Robert Browning. 



TRUE LOVE. 

LET me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments. Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove : 
O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 
It is the star to every wandering bark, 
Whose worth 's unknown, although his height be taken. 
Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
If this be error and upon me proved, 
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

William Shakspere. 



THE BROOK-SIDE. 87 



THE BROOK-SIDE. 

I WANDERED by the brook-side, 
I wandered by the mill ; 
I could not hear the brook flow — 

The noisy wheel was still. 
There was no burr of grasshopper, 

No chirp of any bird, 
But the beating of my own heart 
Was all the sound I heard- 

I sat beneath the elm-tree : 

I watched the long, long shade, 
And, as it grew still longer, 

I did not feel afraid ; 
For I listened for a footfall, 

I listened for a word — 
But the beating of my own heart 

Was all the sound I heard. 

He came not, — no, he came not — 

The night came on alone — 
The little stars sat one by one, 

Each on his golden throne ; 
The evening wind passed by my cheek, 

The leaves above were stirred — 
But the beating of my own heart 

Was all the sound I heard. 



88 OUT OF THE HEART 

Fast silent tears were flowing, 

When something stood behind ; 
A hand was on my shoulder — 

I knew its touch was kind ; 
It drew me nearer — nearer — 

We did not speak one word, 
For the beating of our own hearts 

Was all the sound we heard. 



Richard Monckton Milnes. 



LOVE'S JUSTIFICATION. 

IT must be right sometimes to entertain 
Chaste love with hope not over-credulous : 
Since if all human loves were impious, 
Unto what end did God the world ordain ? 

If I love thee and bend beneath thy reign, 
'T is for the sake of beauty glorious 
Which in thine eyes divine is stored for us, 
And drives all evil thought from its domain. 

That is not love whose tyranny we own 
In loveliness that every moment dies; 
Which, like the face it worships, fades away : 

True love is that which the pure heart hath known. 
Which alters not with time or death's decay, 
Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise. 

Michael Angelo. 



THE LOVER'S NIGHT THOUGHTS. 89 

A FOREBODING. 

WHAT were the whole void world, if thou wert 
dead, 
Whose briefest absence can eclipse my day, 
And make the hours that danced with Time away 
Drag their funereal steps with muffled tread ? 
Through thee, meseems, the very rose is red, 
From thee draw life all things that grow not gray, 
And by thy force the happy stars are sped. 
Thou near, the hope of thee to overflow 
Fills all my earth and heaven, and when in Spring, 
Ere April come, the birds and blossoms know, 
And grasses brighten round her feet to cling ; 
Nay, and this hope delights all nature so 
That the dumb turf I tread on seems to sing. 

James Russell Lowell. 



THE LOVER'S NIGHT THOUGHTS. 

WEARY with toil, I haste me to my bed, 
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired ; 
But then begins a journey in my head, 
To work my mind, when body's work 's expired : 
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, 
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, 
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, 
Looking on darkness which the blind do see : 
Save that my soul's imaginary sight 
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, 



90 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, 
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new. 
Lo ! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, 
For thee and for myself no quiet find. 

William Shakspere. 



NIGHT THOUGHTS. 

,/ Hp IS sweeter than all else below, 

A The daylight and its duties done, 
To fold the arms for rest, and so 

Relinquish all regards but one ; 
To see her features in the dark ; 

To lie and meditate once more, 
Some grace he did not fully mark, 

Some tone he had not heard before; 
Then from beneath his head to take 

Her notes, her picture, and her glove, 
Put there for joy when he shall wake, 

And press them to the heart of love ; 
And then to whisper " Wife," and pray 

To live so long as not to miss 
That unimaginable day 

Which farther seems the nearer 'tis; 
And still from joy's unfathomed well 

To drink, in sleep, while, on her brow 
Of innocence ineffable, 

The laughing bridal roses blow. 

Coventry Patmore. 



TO LUC AST A. 9 1 



WITH A HAND-GLASS. 

A PICTURE-FRAME for you to fill, 
A paltry setting for your face, 
A thing that has no worth until 

You lend it something of your grace, 

I send (unhappy I that sing 

Laid by awhile upon the shelf) 
Because I would not send a thing 

Less charming than you are yourself. 

And happier than I, alas ! 

(Dumb thing, I envy its delight) 
'Twill wish you well, the looking-glass, 

And look you in the face to-night. 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 



TO LUCASTA. 

TELL me not, sweet, I am unkind, 
That from the nunnery 
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, 
To war and arms I fly. 

True, a new mistress now I chase, 

The first foe in the field ; 
And with a stronger faith embrace 

A sword, a horse, a shield. 



92 OUT OF THE HEART 

Yet this inconstancy is such 

As you too shall adore ; 
I could not love thee, dear, so much, 

Loved I not honor more. 

Richard Lovelace. 



TELEPATHY. 

" A ND how could you dream of meeting? " 
^""^ Nay, how can you ask me, sweet ? 

All day my pulse had been beating 
The tune of your coming feet. 

And as nearer and ever nearer 

I felt the throb of your tread, 
To be in the world grew dearer, 

And my blood ran rosier red. 

Love called, and I could not linger, 

But sought the forbidden tryst, 
As music follows the finger 

Of the dreaming lutanist. 

And though you had said it and said it, 

" We must not be happy to-day," 
Was I not wiser to credit 

The fire in my feet than your nay ? 

James Russell Lowell. 



"TLL NEVER LOVE THEE MORE." 93 



MY LOVE, 

IF on the clustering curls of thy dark hair. 
And the pure arching of thy polished brow, 
We only gaze, we fondly dream that thou 
Art one of those bright ministers who bear, 
Along the cloudless bosom of the air, 

Sweet solemn words, to which our spirits bow, — 
With such a holy smile thou lookest now, 
And art so soft and delicately fair. 

A veil of tender light is mantling o'er thee ; 

Around thy opening lips young loves are playing, 
And crowds of youths, in passionate thought de- 
laying, 
Pause, as thou movest by them, to adore thee ; 
By many a sudden blush and tear betraying 
How the heart trembles when it bends before thee ! 

James Gates Percival. 

"I'LL NEVER LOVE THEE MORE." 

MY dear and only love, I pray 
That little world of thee 
Be governed by no other sway 

But purest monarchy : 
For if confusion have a part, 

Which virtuous souls abhor, 
And hold a synod in thy heart, 
I '11 never love thee more. 



94 OUT OF THE HEART. 

As Alexander I will reign, 

And I will reign alone : 
My thoughts did evermore disdain 

A rival on my throne. 
He either fears his fate too much, 

Or his deserts are small, 
Who dares not to put it to the touch 

To gain or lose it all. 

But, if no faithless action stain 

Thy love and constant word, 
1 11 make thee famous by my pen, 

And glorious by my sword. 
I '11 serve thee in such noble ways 

As ne'er were known before ; 
I ? 11 deck and crown thy head with bays, 

And love thee more and more. 

Marquis of Montrose. 



LOVE CEREMONIOUS. 

KEEP your undrest, familiar style 
For strangers, but respect your friend, 
Her most, whose matrimonial smile 

Is, and asks honor without end. 
'T is found, and needs it must so be, 

That life from love's allegiance flags, 
When love forgets his majesty 
In sloth's unceremonious rags, 



O FILIA PULCHRA! 95 

Love should make home a stately Court : 

There let the world's rude, hasty ways 
Be fashioned to a loftier port, 

And learn to bow and stand at gaze ; 
And let the sweet, respective sphere 

Of personal worship there obtain 
Circumference for moving clear, 

None treading on another's train. 
This makes that pleasures do not cloy, 

And dignifies our mortal strife 
With calmness and considerate joy 

Befitting our immortal life. 

Coventry Patmore. 



O FILIA PULCHRA! 

HOW your sweet face revives again 
The dear old time, my Pearl, — 
If I may use the pretty name 
I called you when a girl. 

You are so young; while Time of me 

Has made a cruel prey, 
It has forgotten you, nor swept 

One grace of youth away. 

The same sweet face, the same sweet smile- 

The same lithe figure, too ! — 
What did you say ? It was perchance 

Your mother that I knew ? 



g6 OUT OF THE HEART 

Ah. yes. of course, it must have been, 

And yet the same you seem, 
And for a moment, all these years 

Fled from me like a dream. 

Then what your mother would not give, 

Permit me. dear, to take, 
The old man's privilege — a kiss — 

Just for your mother's sake. 

William Wetmore Story. 



UPON JULIAS CLOTHES. 

WHEN AS in silk my Julia goes, 
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows 
That liquefaction of her clothes. 
Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see 
That brave vibration each way free : 
Oh, how that glittering taketh me ! 

Robert Herrick. 

THE LETTERS. 

STILL on the tower stood the vane, 
A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air, 
I peer'd athwart the chancel pane 

And saw the altar cold and bare. 
A clog of lead was round my feet, 
A band of pain across my brow ; 
" Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet 
Before you hear my marriage vow."' 



THE LETTERS. 97 

I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song 

That mock'd the wholesome human heart, 
And then we met in wrath and wrong, 

We met, but only meant to part. 
Full cold my greeting was and dry ; 

She faintly smiled, she hardly moved ; 
I saw with half-unconscious eye 

She wore the colors I approved. 

She took the little ivory chest, 

With half a sigh she turn'd the key, 
Then raised her head with lips comprest, 

And gave my letters back to me. 
And gave the trinkets and the rings, 

My gifts, when gifts of mine could please : 
As looks a father on the things 

Of his dead son, I look'd on these. 

She told me all her friends had said ; 

I raged against the public liar ; 
She talk'd as if her love were dead, 

But in my words were seeds of fire. 
" No more of love ; your sex is known : 

I never will be twice deceived. 
Henceforth I trust the man alone, 

The woman cannot be believed. 

" Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell 
(And woman's slander is the worst), 

And you, whom once I loved so well, 
Thro' you, my life will be accurst." 
7 



98 OUT OF THE HEART 

I spoke with heart, and heat and force, 
I shook her breast with vague alarms — 

Like torrents from a mountain source 
We rushed into each other's arms. 

We parted : sweetly gleam'd the stars, 

And sweet the vapor-braided blue ; 
Low breezes fanned the belfry bars, 

As homeward by the church I drew. 
The very graves appeared to smile, 

So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells ; 
" Dark porch," I said, " and silent aisle, 

There comes a sound of marriage bells." 

Alfred Tennyson. 



JENNY KISSED ME. 

JENNY kissed me when we met, 
Jumping from the chair she sat in ; 
Time, you thief! who love to get 

Sweets into your list, put that in. 
Say I 'm weary, say I 'm sad ; 

Say that health and wealth have missed me ; 
Say I 'm growing old, but add — 

Jenny kissed me ! 

Leigh Hunt. 



NO TIME TO HATE. 99 



SINCE THERE'S NO HELP. 

SINCE there 's no help, come, let us kiss and part ! 
Nay, I have done ; you get no more of me ; 
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, 
That thus so clearly I myself can free. 
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, 
And when we meet at any time again, 
Be it not seen, on either of our brows, 
That we one jot of former love retain. 

Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, 

When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, 

When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, 

And innocence is closing up his eyes ; 

Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, 

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover. 

Michael Drayton. 



NO TIME TO HATE. 

I HAD no time to hate, because 
The grave would hinder me, 
And life was not so ample I 
Could finish enmity. 

Nor had I time to love ; but since 
Some industry must be, 
The little toil of love, I thought, 
Was large enough for me. 

Emily Dickinson. 



100 OUT OF THE HEART. 



A WOMAN'S ANSWER. 



I WILL not let you say a woman's part 
Must be to give exclusive love alone ; 
Dearest, although I love you so, my heart 
Answers a thousand claims besides your own. 

I love, — what do I not love ? Earth and air 
Find space within my heart, and myriad things 

You would not deign to heed are cherished there, 
And vibrate on its very inmost strings. 

I love the summer, with her ebb and flow 
Of light and warmth and music, that have nursed 

Her tender buds to blossoms ; . . . and you know 
It was in summer that I saw you first. 

I love the winter dearly too, . . . but then 

I owe it so much ; on a winter's day, 
Bleak, cold and stormy, you returned again, 

When you had been those weary months away. 

I love the stars like friends ; so many nights 
I gazed at them, when you were far from me, 

Till I grew blind with tears ; . . . those far-off lights 
Could watch you, whom I longed in vain to see. 



A WOMAN'S ANSWER. 10 1 

I love the flowers ; happy hours lie 

Shut up within their petals close and fast : 

You have forgotten, dear ; but they and I 
Keep every fragment of the golden Past. 

I love, too, to be loved ; all loving praise 
Seems like a crown upon my life, — to make 

It better worth the giving, and to raise 

Still nearer to your own the heart you take. 

I love all good and noble souls ; — I heard 
One speak of you but lately, and for days, 

Only to think of it, my soul was stirrred 
In tender memory of such generous praise. 

I love all those who love you, all who owe 
Comfort to you ; and I can find regret 

Even for those poorer hearts who once could know, 
And once could love you, and can now forget. 

Well, is my heart so narrow, — I, who spare 
Love for all these ? Do I not even hold 

My favorite books in special tender care, 
And prize them as a miser does his gold ? 



The poets that you used to read to me 
While summer twilights faded in the sky ; 

But most of all I think Aurora Leigh 

Because — because — do you remember why ? 



102 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Will you be jealous ? Did you guess before 
I loved so many things ? — Still you the best : — 

Dearest, remember that I love you more, 
O more a thousand times, than all the rest ! 

Adelaide A. Procter. 



t 



A REMINISCENCE. 

WAS April : *t was Sunday : the day was fair, — 
Yes ! sunny and fair. 
And how happy was I ! 



You wore the white dress you loved to wear ; *} % 

And two little flowers were hid in your hair — ,, < / yr / l* t 

Yes ! in your hair — si^Jk r^^ 

On that day — gone by ! ' 

We sat on the moss : it was shady and dry, — 

Yes ! shady and dry : 

And we sat in the shadow. 
We looked at the leaves, we looked at the sky. 
We looked at the brook which bubbled near by. — 

Yes, bubbled near by. 

Through the quiet meadow. 

A bird sang on the swinging vine. — 

Yes. on the vine. — 

And then. — sang not : 
I took your little white hand in mine ; 
*T was April : *t was Sunday : *t was warm sunshine. — 

Yes, warm sunshine : 

Have you forgot ? 

Translation: James Freeman Clarke 



" WHEN YOU ARE OLD:' 103 



LOVE FOR LOVE'S SAKE. 

IF thou must love me, let it be for nought 
Except for love's sake only. Do not say 
" I love her for her smile, . . her look, . . her way 
Of speaking gently, . . for a trick of thought 
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day " — 
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may 
Be changed or change for thee, — and love so wrought 
May be un wrought so. Neither love me for 
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry: 
A creature might forget to weep, who bore 
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby. 
But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
Thou mays't love on through love's eternity. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



"WHEN YOU ARE OLD." 

WHEN you are old, and I am passed away — 
Passed, and your face, your golden face is 
gray — 
I think whate'er the end, this dream of mine, 
Comforting you, a friendly star will shine 
Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray. 

So may it be : that no dead Yesterday, 
No sad-eyed ghost, but generous and gay, 
May serve you memories like almighty wine, 
When you are old. 



IC4 OUT OF THE HEART 

Dear Heart, it shall be so. Under the sway 

Of death the past's enormous disarray 

Lies hushed and dark. Yet though there come r 

sign, 
Live on well pleased : immortal and divine, 
Love shall still tend you, as God's angels may, 
When you are old. 

William Ernest Henley. 



IDEAL LOVE. 

HE who loves truly, grows in force and might ; 
For beauty and the image of his love 
Expand his spirit : whence he burns to prove 
Adventures high, and hold all perils light. 

If thus a lady's love dilate the knight, 

What glories and what joy all joys above 
Shall not the heavenly splendor, joined by love 
Unto our flesh-imprisoned soul, excite ? 

Once freed, she would become one sphere immense 
Of love, power, wisdom, filled with Deity, 
Elate with wonders of the eternal Sense. 

But we like sheep and wolves war ceaselessly : 
That love we never seek, that light intense, 
Which would exalt us to infinity. 

Michael Angelo. 



LETTICE, 10 ; 



LETTICE, 

I SAID to Lettice, our sister Lettice, 
While drooped and glistened her eyelash brown, 
"Your man 's a poor man, a cold and dour man, 

There 's many a better about our town." 
She smiled securely — u He loves me purely : 
A true heart 's safe, both in smile or frown ; 
And nothing harms me while his love warms me, 
Whether the world go up or down." 

" He comes of strangers, and they are rangers, 

And ill to trust, girl, when out of sight : 
Fremd folk may blame ye, and e'en defame ye, — 

A gown oft handled looks seldom white." 
She raised serenely her eyelids queenly, — 

" My innocence is my whitest gown; 
No harsh tongue grieves me while he believes me, 

Whether the world go up or down." 

" Your man 's a frail man, was ne'er a hale man, 

And sickness knocketh at every door, 
And death comes making bold hearts cower, break- 
ing— " 

Our Lettice trembled, — but once, no more. 
i; If death should enter, smite to the centre 

Our poor home palace, all crumbling down, 
He cannot fright us, nor disunite us, 

Life bears Love's cross, death brings Love's crown." 

Dinah Mulock Craik. 



106 OUT OF THE HEART 



TO E, B. B. 

GOD be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
One to show a woman when he loves her. 

This I say of me, but think of you, Love ! 

This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! 

Ah, but that 's the world's side, — there 's the wonder, — 

Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you. 

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you, 

Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. 

But the best is when I glide from out them, 

Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, 

Come out on the other side, the novel 

Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 

Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, 
Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, 
Wrote one song, — and in my brain I sing it ; 
Drew one angel, — borne, see, on my bosom ! 

Robert Browning. 



AT LAST. 

IN the day the sun is darkened, 
And the moon as blood, 
And the earth is swept to ruin 
On the avenging flood, 



THE COURSE OF LOVE. 107 

Come to me — Then give thyself 

To my arms and kiss ; 
We shall not know that all is lost, 

So great shall be our bliss. 

Stopford Brooke. 



SONG. 

IN Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, 
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers : 
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. 

It is the little rift within the lute 
That by and by will make the music mute, 
And ever widening slowly silence all. 

The little rift within the lover's lute, 
Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit 
That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all. 

It is not worth the keeping, — let it go : 
But shall it? Answer, darling; answer, No. 
And trust me not at all, or all in all. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



THE COURSE OF LOVE. 

HER father loved me ; oft invited me ; 
Still questioned me the story of my life, 
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, 
That I have passed. 



108 OUT OF THE HEART. 

I ran it through, even from my boyish days, 
To the very moment that he bade me tell it. . . . 

These things to hear 
Would Desdemona seriously incline : 
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence : 
Which ever as she could with haste despatch, 
She 'Id come again, and with a greedy ear 
Devour up my discourse : which I observing, 
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means 
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart 
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 
Whereof by parcels she had something heard, 
But not intentively : I did consent, 
And often did beguile her of her tears, 
W T hen I did speak of some distressful stroke 
That my youth suffered. My story being done, 
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs : 
She swore, in faith, 't was strange, 't was passing 

strange, 
'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful : 
She wished she had not heard it ; yet she wished 
That heaven had made her such a man : she thanked 

me, 
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 
I should but teach him how to tell my story, 
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake : 
She loved me for the dangers I had passed, 
And I loved her that she did pity them. 
This only is the witchcraft I have used : 
Here comes the lady ; let her witness it. 

William Shakspere. 



SOME DAY OF DAYS. 109 



SOME DAY OF DAYS. 

SOME day? some day of days, threading the street 
With idle, heedless pace, 
Unlooking for such grace, 
I shall behold your face ! 
Some day, some day of days, thus may we meet. 

Perchance the sun may shine from skies of May, 

Or winter's icy chill 

Touch whitely vale and hill. 

What matter? I shall thrill 
Through every vein with summer on that day. 

Once more life's perfect youth will all come back, 

And for a moment there 

I shall stand fresh and fair, 

And drop the garment care , 
Once more my perfect youth will nothing lack. 

I shut my eyes now, thinking how 'twill be, — 

How face to face each soul 

Will slip its long control, 

Forget the dismal dole 
Of dreary Fate's dark separating sea ; 

And glance to glance and hand to hand in greeting, 

The past with all its fears, 

Its silence and its tears, 

Its lonely yearning years, 
Shall vanish in the moment of that meeting. 

Nora Perry. 



110 OUT OF THE HEART. 



THE PARADOX. 

HOW strang^a thing a Lover seems 
To animals that do not love ! 
Look where he walks and talks in dreams, 

And flouts us with his Lady's glove ! 
How foreign is the garb he wears, 

And how his great devotion mocks 
Our poor propriety, and scares 

The undevout with paradox ! 
His soul, through scorn of worldly care, 

And great extremes of sweet and gall, 
And musing much on all that '$ fair, 

Grows witty and fantastical ; 
He sobs his joy and sings his grief, 

And evermore finds such delight 
In simply picturing his relief, 

That 'plaining seems to cure his plight. 
He makes his sorrow when there 's none; 

His fancy blows both cold and hot ; 
Next to the wish that she '11 be won, 

His first hope is that she may not. 
He sues, yet deprecates consent ; 

Would she be captured, she must fly; 
She looks too happy and content, 

For whose least pleasure he would die. 
Oh, cruelty, she cannot care 

For one to whom she 's always kind ! 
He says he 's naught, but oh, despair, 

If he 's not Jove to her fond mind ! 



THE PARADOX. Ill 

He 's jealous if she pets a dove, 

She must be his with all her soul ; 
Yet 't is a postulate in love 

That part is greater than the whole, 
And all his apprehension's stress, 

When he 's with her, regards her hair, 
Her hand, a ribbon of her dress, — 

As if his life were only there. 
Because she *s constant, he will change, 

And kindest glances coldly meet; 
And all the time he seems so strange, 

His soul is fawning at her feet. 
Of smiles and simple heaven grown tired, 

He wickedly provokes her tears ; 
And when she weeps, as he desired, 

Falls slain with ecstasies of fears ; 
He finds, although she has no fault, 

Except the folly to be his ; 
He worships her the more to exalt 

The profanation of a kiss. 
Health 's his disease; he 's never well 

But when his paleness shames her rose ; 
His faith % s a rock-built citadel, 

Its sign a flag that each way blows ; 
His o'erfed fancy frets and fumes. 

And Love in him is fierce like Hate, 
And ruffles his ambrosial plumes 

Against the bars of time and fate. 

Coventry Fatmore. 



112 OUT OF THE HEART 



PARTED. 

DO not write. I am sad, and would my life were 
o'er. 
A summer without thee ? Oh, night of starless 
gloom ! 
I fold the idle arms that cannot clasp thee more ; 
To knock at my heart's door were like knocking on 
a tomb. 

Do not write. 

Do not write We will learn unto ourselves to die. 
Ask God, or ask thyself of my love, if thou wouldst 
know ; 
But to hear thee calling far away and calling tenderly, 
Were to hear the songs of Heaven afar and never 
hope to go. 

Do not write. 

Do not write ; for I fear thee. I do not dare to think 
How thy voice was wont to sound, lest it seem to 
call anew. 
Do not show living water to one who cannot drink ; 
The writing of a friend is a likeness passing true. 
Do not write. 

Do not write those sweet words, for I may not read 

them now ; 
They would flood my foolish heart with a deceitful 

bliss. 



HER HELPFULNESS 1 13 

They are brilliant with thy smile, with thy tenderness 

aglow ; 
I could not choose but dream thou hadst sealed 
them with a kiss. 

Do not write. 

Madame Desbordes-Valmore. 



SPECULATIVE. 

OTHERS may need new life in Heaven ; 
Man, Nature, Art made new, assume ! 
Man with new mind old sense to leaven, 
Nature — new light to clear old gloom, 
Art that breaks bounds, gets soaring room. 

I shall pray ; " Fugitive as precious — 
Minutes which passed, — return, remain! 

Let earth's old life once more enmesh us, 
You with old pleasure, me — old pain, 

So we but meet nor part again ! r 

Robert Browning. 



HER HELPFULNESS. 

YEA, let me praise my lady whom I love, 
Likening her unto the lily and rose : 
Brighter than morning star her visage glows ; 
She is beneath even as her Saint above : 
She is as the air in summer which God wove 



114 OUT 0F THE HEART. 

Of purple and vermilion glorious ; 
As gold and jewels richer than man knows. 
Love's self, being love for her, must holier prove. 
Ever as she walks she hath a sober grace, 

Making bold men abashed and good men glad ; 
If she delight thee not, thy heart must err. 
No man dare look on her, his thoughts being base; 
Nay, let me say even more than I have said : 

No man could think base thoughts who looked 
on her. 

Dante : Vita Nitova. 



THE FIRST LESSON, 

NOT in this world to see his face 
Sounds long, until I read the place 
Where this is said to be 
But just the primer to a life 
Unopened, rare, upon the shelf 
Clasped yet to him and me. 

And yet, my primer suits me so 
I would not choose a book to know 
Than that, be sweeter wise ; 
Might some one else so learned be, 
And leave me just my ABC, 
Himself could have the skies, 

Emily Dickinson 



THE WEDDIXG-DAY. 115 



WHO KNOW NOT LOVE. 

AH ! sad are they who know not love, 
But, far from passion's tears and smiles. 
Drift down a moonless sea, beyond 
The silvery coasts of fairy isles. 

And sadder they whose longing lips 
Kiss empty air, and never touch 
The dear warm mouth of those they love — 
Waiting, wasting, suffering much. 

But clear as amber, fine as musk 
Is life to those who, pilgrim wise, 
.Move hand in hand from dawn to dusk, 
Each morning nearer Paradise. 

Oh, not for them shall angels pray ! 
They stand in everlasting light, 
They walk in Allah's smile by day, 
And nestle in his heart by night. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 



THE WEDDING-DAY. 

OTRUE and tried, so well and long, 
Demand not thou a marriage lay; 
In that it is thy marriage day 
Is music more than any song. 



Il6 OUT OF THE HEART. 

But where is she, the bridal flower, 
That must be made a wife ere noon ? 
She enters, glowing like the moon 

Of Eden on its bridal bower : 

On me she bends her blissful eyes, 
And then on thee; they meet thy look, 
And brighten like the star that shook 

Betwixt the palms of Paradise. 

But now set out; the noon is near, 
And I must give away the bride ; 
She fears not, or with thee beside 

And me behind her, will not fear : 

For I that danced her on my knee, 
That watched her on her nurse's arm, 
That shielded all her life from harm, 

At last must part with her to thee; 

Now waiting to be made a wife, 
Her feet, my darling, on the dead ; 
Their pensive tablets round her head, 

And the most living words of life 

Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, 
The "wilt thou " answered, and again 
The " wilt thou " asked, till out of twain 

Her sweet " I will " has made ye one. 



THE WEDDING-DAY. \\J 

Now sign your names, which shall be read, 

Mute symbols of a joyful morn, 

By village eyes as yet unborn ; 
The names are signed, and overhead 

Begins the clash and clang that tells 
The joy to every wandering breeze; 
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 

The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 



O happy hour ! and happier hours 
Await them. Many a merry face 
Salutes them, — maidens of the place, 

That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 

O happy hour ! behold the bride 
With him to whom her hand I gave. 
They leave the porch, they pass the grave 

That has to-day its sunny side. 

But they must go ; the time draws on, 
And those white-favored horses wait ; 
They rise, but linger, it is late ; 

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 

A shade falls on us like the dark 
From little cloudlets on the grass, 
But sweeps away as out we pass 

To range the woods, to roam the park, 



Il8 OUT OF THE HEART 

Discussing how their courtship grew, 
And talk of others that are wed, 
And how she looked, and what he said ; 

And back we come at fall of dew. 

Again the feast, the speech, the glee, 

The shade of passing thought, the wealth 
Of words and wit, the double health, 

The crowning cup, the three times three, 

And last the dance ; till I retire : 

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, 
And high in heaven the streaming cloud, 

And on the downs a rising fire : 

And rise, O moon, from yonder down, 
Till over down and over dale 
All night the shining vapor sail 

And pass the silent-lighted town, 

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, 
And catch at every mountain head. 
And o'er the friths that branch and spread 

Their sleeping silver through the hills. 

And touch with shade the bridal doors, 
With tender gloom the roof, the wall; 
And breaking let the splendor fall 

To spangle all the happy shores 

By which they rest. 

Alfred Tennysox. 



AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE. Iig 

TO A DAUGHTER ON HER MARRIAGE. 
From the French of Victor Hugo. 

BE happy now with him, and love him who loves 
thee ; 
Adieu ! ozir treasure thou hast been, his henceforth be. 
From home, yet to thy home, O darling child ! depart ; 
Take with thee all the joy — leave us the heavy heart ! 

We fain would keep thee here, yet there for thee they 

wait ; 
Wife, daughter, angel, child, — assume thy twofold 

state ; 
Leave a regret for us, take them a hope the while ; 
Not without tears go forth, but enter with a smile ! 

Samuel Longfellow. 

AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE. 

HOW sweet it were, if without feeble fright. 
Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight, 
An angel came to us, and we could bear 
To see him issue from the silent air 
At evening in our room, and bend on ours 
His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers 
News of dear friends, and children who have never 
Been dead indeed — as we shall know forever. 



120 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Alas ! we think not what we daily see 
About our hearths, — angels that are to be, 
Or may be if they will ; and we prepare 
Their souls and hours to meet in happy air, — 
A child, a friend, a wife, whose soft heart sings 
In unison with ours, breeding its future wings. 

Leigh Hunt. 



A WEDDING SONG. 

June 28, 1865. 

TWO roses growing on a single tree, 
Two faces bending o'er a silver spring, 
Two pairs of eyes that their own image see, 
And set the heavens within a little ring, 
Two children in this naughty world of ours, 
Linked by the marriage powers. 

Undo the things from off your feet, — 
This spot at least is holy ground. 
The solitude is wild and sweet, 
Where no base thing is found. 
There watch, or wander in that Paradise 
Till soft moon-rise. 

Sink through the soundless world of dreams, 
Or climb the secret stairs of bliss, 
And tiptoe stand where brightest gleams 
The heaven of heavens within a kiss ; 



THE NEWLY WEDDED. 121 

Sleep through the soft hours of rosy morn; 
Urania, be born ! 

Sleep while the moist star trembles in the dews, 
And when in sunrise gleams the lake of glass ; 
Sleep while the heavens are interchanging hues, 
And Saturn's tear " rolls down the blade of glass ; " 
Wake when the birds are singing in the trees, 
And sing like these. 

John Savary. 



THE NEWLY WEDDED. 

NOW the rite is duly done, 
Now the word is spoken, 
And the spell has made us one 
Which may ne'er be broken : 
Rest we, dearest, in our home, — 

Roam we o'er the heather, — 
We shall rest, and we shall roam, 
Shall we not? together. 

From this hour the summer rose 

Sweeter breathes to charm us ; 
From this hour the winter snows 

Lighter fall to harm us : 
Fair or foul — on land or sea — 

Come the wind or weather, 
Best or worst, whate'er they be, 

We shall share together. 



122 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Death, who friend from friend can part, 

Brother rend from brother, 
Shall but link us, heart and heart, 

Closer to each other : 
We will call his anger play, 

Deem his dart a feather, 
When we meet him on our way 

Hand in hand together. 

WlNTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. 



A WEDDING SONG. 

I SAID : " My heart, now let us sing a song 
For a fair lady on her wedding day : 
Some solemn hymn or pretty roundelay, 
That shall be with her as she goes along 
To meet her joy, and for her happy feet 
Shall make a pleasant music, low and sweet." 

Then said my heart : " It is right bold of thee 
To think that any song that we could sing 
Would for this lady be an offering 

Meet for such gladness as hers needs must be, 
What tim~ she goes to don her bridal ring, 
And her own heart makes sweetest carolling .*' 

And so it is that with my lute unstrung, 
Lady, I come to greet thy wedding-day ; 
But once, methinks, I heard a poet say 

The sweetest songs remain for aye unsung. 



THE DAY-DREAM— THE DEPARTURE. 1 23 

So mine, unsung, at thy dear feet I lay, 

And with a " Peace be with thee ! " go my way. 

John W. Chad wick. 



THE DAY-DREAM— THE DEPARTURE. 

AND on her lover's arm she leant, 
And round her waist she felt it fold, 
And far across the hills they went 

In that new world which is the old : 
Across the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
And deep into the dying day 

The happy princess followed him. 

" I 'd sleep another hundred years, 

O love, for such another kiss ; " 
" Oh, wake forever, love/' she hears, 

"O love, 'twas such as this and this." 
And o'er them many a sliding star, 

And many a merry wind was borne, 
And, streamed through many a golden bar, 

The twilight melted into morn. 

" O eyes long laid in happy sleep ! " 
u O happy sleep, that lightly fled ! " 

" O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep ! " 
u O love, thy kiss would wake the dead ! " 



124 OUT OF THE HEART. 

And o'er them many a flowing range 
Of vapor buoyed the crescent bark, 

And, rapt through many a rosy change, 
The twilight died into the dark. 

" A hundred summers ! can it be ? 

And whither goest thou, tell me where ? " 
" Oh, seek my father's court with me, 

For there are greater wonders there." 
And o'er the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
Beyond the night, across the day, 

Through all the world she followed him. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



WHEN SHE COMES HOME. 

WHEN she comes home again ! A thousand 
ways 
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness 
Of my glad welcome : I shall tremble — yes ; 
And touch her as when first in the old days 

I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise 

Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress. 
Then silence, and the perfume of her dress : 
The room will sway a little, and a haze 

Cloy eyesight — soul- sight, even — for a space : 
And tears, — yes; and the ache here in the throat, 
To know that I so ill deserve the place 

Her arms made for me ; and the sobbing note 



UNKIND WORDS. T2 5 

I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face 
Again is hidden in the old embrace. 

James Whitcomb Riley. 



TWO TRUTHS. 

DARLING," he said, "I never meant 
To hurt you ; " and his eyes were wet. 
" I would not hurt you for the world : 
Am I to blame if I forget ? " 

" Forgive my selfish tears ! " she cried, 
" Forgive ! I knew that it was not 

Because you meant to hurt me, sweet, — 
I knew it was that you forgot." 

But all the same, deep in her heart 

Rankled this thought, and rankles yet, — 
" When love is at its best, one loves 



So much that he cannot forget." 



H. H. Jackson. 



UNKIND WORDS. 

IF I had known in the morning 
How wearily all the day 
The words unkind 
Would trouble your mind 
That I said when you went away, 
I had been more careful, darling, 



126 OUT OF THE HEART 

Nor given you needless pain ; 

But we vex our own 

With look and tone, 
We might never take back again. 

For though in the quiet evening 
You give me a kiss of peace, 

Yet it well might be 

That never for me 
The pain of the heart should cease ! 
How many go forth in the morning 
Who never come home at night ! 

And hearts have been broken 

For harsh words spoken, 
That sorrow can ne'er set right. 

We have careful thought for the stranger, 

And smiles for the sometime guest ; 

But oft for our own 

The bitter tone, 

Though we love our own the best. 

Ah, lips with the curve impatient ! 

Ah, brow with the shade of scorn! 

'T were a cruel fate 

Were the night too late 

To undo the work of morn. 

Anon. 



SUN AXD RAIX. 127 



SUN AND RAIN. 

A YOUNG wife stood at the lattice-pane, 
In a study sad and " brown, * 
Watching the dreary ceaseless rain 
Steadily pouring down : 

Drip, drip, drip ! 
It kept on its tireless play; 
And the poor little woman sighed, " Ah me ! 
What a wretched, weary day ! " 

An eager hand at the door, 

A step as of one in haste, 
A kiss on her lips once more, 

And an arm around her waist : 
Throb, throb, throb ! 

Went her little heart grateful and gay, 
As she thought, with a smile, " Well after all, 

It is n't so dull a day ! " 

Forgot was the plash' ng rain 

And the lowering skies above, 
For the sombre room was lighted again 
By the blessed sun of love : 

" Love, love, love ! " 
Ran the little wife's murmured lay ; 
" Without, it may threaten and frown if it will ; 
Within what a golden day ! " 

Anon. 



128 OUT OF THE HEART 



HOME SONG. 

STAY, stay at home, my heart and rest; 
Home-keeping hearts are happiest, 
For those that wander they know not where 
Are full of trouble and full of care : 
To stay at home is best. 

Weary and homesick and distressed, 
They wander east, they wander west, 
And are baffled and beaten and blown about 
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt : 
To stay at home is best. 

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest; 
The bird is safest in its nest ; 
O'er all that flutter their wings and fly 
A hawk is hovering in the sky : 
To stay at home is best. 



Anon. 



THE OLDEST STORY. 

UNDER the coverlet's snowy fold 
The tiniest stir that ever was seen, 
And the tiniest sound, as if fairy folk 
Were cuddling under a leaf, I ween. 



THE OLDEST STORY. 1 29 

That is the baby : he came to town 

Only a day or two ago ; 
But he looks as wise as if he knew 

All that a baby can ever know. 

There he lies in a little heap, 

As soft as velvet, as warm as toast, 
As rosy-red as the harvest moon 

Which I saw so big on the hazy coast. 

Hear him gurgle and sputter and sigh, 
As if his dear little heart would break, 

And scold away as if all the world 

Were only meant for his littleness' sake. 

Blink, little eyes, at the strange new light ; 

Hark, little ears, at the strange new sound : 
Wonderful things shall you see and hear 

As the days and the months and the years go round. 

Hardly you seem a Life at all ; 

Only a Something with hands and feet, 
Only a Feeling that things are warm, 

Only a Longing for something to eat. 

Have you a thought in your downy head? 

Can you say to yourself so much as " I " ? 
Have you found out yet that you are yourself ? 

Or has God, what you will be by and by ? 
9 



130 OUT OF THE HEART 

It "s only a little that we can guess, 

But it 's quite as much as we care to know, 

The rest will come with the fleeting years, 
Little by little, — and better so. 

Enough for the day is the good thereof: 
The speck of a thing that is lying there, 

And the presence that fills the silent house 
With the tender hush of a voiceless prayer. 

John W. Chadwick. 

SKETCH OF A YOUNG LADY FIVE 
MONTHS OLD. 

MY pretty budding, breathing flower, 
Methinks, if I to-morrow 
Could manage, just for half an hour, 

Sir Joshua's brush to borrow, 
I might immortalize a few 

Of all the myriad graces 
Which Time, while yet they all are new, 
With newer still replaces. 

I 'd paint, my child, your deep blue eyes, 

Their quick and earnest flashes ; 
I 'd paint the fringe that round them lies, 

The fringe of long dark lashes ; 
I 'd draw with most fastidious care 

One eyebrow, then the other, 
And that fair forehead, broad and fair, 

The forehead of your mother. 



A YOUNG LADY FIVE MONTHS OLD. 1 3 1 

I 'd oft retouch the dimpled cheek 

Where health in sunshine dances; 
And oft the pouting lips, where speak 

A thousand voiceless fancies; 
And the soft neck would keep me long, — 

The neck more smooth and snowy 
Than ever yet in school-boy's song 

Had Caroline or Chloe. 

Not less on those twin rounded arms 

My new-found skill would linger, 
Nor less upon the rosy charms 

Of every tiny finger; 
Nor slight the small feet, little one, 

So prematurely clever 
That, though they neither walk nor run, 

I think they 'd jump forever. 

But then your odd endearing ways — 

What study e'er could catch them ? 
Your aimless gestures, endless plays — ■ 

What canvas e'er could match them? 
Your lively leap of merriment, 

Your murmur of petition, 
Your serious silence of content, 

Your laugh of recognition. 

Here were a puzzling toil, indeed, 
For Art's most fine creations ! — 

Grow on, sweet baby; we will need, 
To note your transformations, 



132 OUT OF THE HEART 

No picture of your form or face, 
Your waking or your sleeping, 

But that which Love shall daily trace, 
And trust to Memory's keeping. 

Hereafter, when revolving years 

Have made you tall and twenty, 
And brought you blended hopes and fears, 

And sighs and slaves in plenty, 
May those who watch our little saint 

Among her tasks and duties, 
Feel all her virtues hard to paint, 

As now we deem her beauties. 

WlNTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. 



BABY'S SKIES. 

WOULD you know the baby's skies ? 
Baby's skies are mother's eyes. 
Mother's eyes and smile together 
Make the baby's pleasant weather. 

Mother, keep your eyes from tears, 
Keep your heart from foolish fears, 
Keep your lips from dull complaining, 
Lest the baby think 't is raining. 

Mary C. Bartlett. 



IN AN UNKNOWN TONGUE. 1 33 



MOTHER. 

UPON her snowy couch she drooping lies, 
A languor on her limbs that seems a grace, 
A sacred pallor on her lily face, 
A blessed light reflected in her eyes, — 
She knows who drew her strength, and would not ris^ 
Forgetting, she rests a little space, 
Sees her warm life-blood mantle in his face, 
And strains her ear to catch his waiting cries. 
O wondrous mother-love ! how strange and deep, 
With what vibrating thrill of tenderness; 
To give the glow, and lie a pallid flower, 
To give the light, and smile, and wait to weep ! 
Sweet is thine infant's warm unconsciousness, 
But sweeter thy mysterious, sacred power ! 

Elaine Goodale. 



IN AN UNKNOWN TONGUE. 

I KNOW full well what saith Saint Paul, - 
For unknown tongues he did not care ; 
It was as much as he could do 
To speak them good and fair. 

Give him the known and understood ; 

Five words of this he counted more 
Than thousands ten of all the rest 

That men could babble o'er. 



134 OUT OF THE HEART 

But then he did n't, as he might, 
Like Peter, take a wife about, 

To tend his thorn, and soothe his heart, 
With combat wearied out. 

And so he had no tiny Paul, 

No nonsense-prating, wee Pauline, 

To make him half forget the strife 
His Jew and Greek between. 

I cannot glory, as could he, 
In perils both by sea and land; 

Of visions I have had a few, — 
Some hard to understand. 

But I can glory in a Boy, 
As dear as ever poet sung ; 

And all his speech, from morn till eve, 
Is in an unknown tongue. 



Strange, bubbling, rippling, gurgling sounds 

His pouting lips still overflow ; 
But what the meaning of them is, 

The wisest do not know. 

Friends have I, learned in the Greek, 
In Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, 

In French and German; and a few 
Of Sanscrit know — not much. 



A RHYME OF ONE. 1 35 

They come and hear the baby's speech, 

As blithe as any song of bird ; 
They wonder much, but go away, 

Nor understand a word. 

It minds me now of mountain rills, 

And now of zigzag droning bees, 
And now of sounds the summer makes 

Among the leafy trees. 

And yet, if I should say the truth, 
Five words of his to me are more 

Than of the words I understand 
Five hundred times a score. 

For whatsoever they may mean 

To him or to my learned friends, 
One meaning, of all meanings best, 

He still to me commends, — 

That life is sweet for him and me, 

Though half its meaning be not guessed; 

That God is good, and I a child 
Upon his loving breast. 

John W. Chadwick. 

A RHYME OF ONE. 

YOU sleep upon your mother's breast, 
Your race begun, 
A welcome, long a wish'd-for Guest, 
Whose as:e is One. 



136 OUr OF THE HEART. 

A Baby-Boy, you wonder why 

You cannot run ; 
You try to talk — how hard you try ! 

You 're only One. 

Ere long you won't be such a dunce ; 

You '11 eat your bun, 
And fly your kite, like folk who once 

Were only One. 

You'll rhyme and woo, and fight and joke, 

Perhaps you '11 pun ! 
Such feats are never done by folk 

Before they're One. 

Some day, too, you may have your joy, 

And envy none ; 
Yes, you yourself may own a Boy 

Who is n't One. 



He '11 dance and laugh and crow ; he '11 do 

As you have done 
(You crown a happy home, though you 

Are only One). 

But when he 's grown shall you be here 

To share his fun. 
And talk of times when he (the Dear !) 

Was hardly One ? 



THE PLAYMATE HOURS. 1 37 

Dear Child, *t is your poor lot to be 

My little Son; 
I 'm glad, though I am old, you see, — 

While you are One. 

Frederick Locker. 



BABY. 

DIMPLED and flushed and dewy pink he lies, 
Crumpled and tossed and lapt in snowy bands ; 
Aimlessly reaching with his tiny hands, 
Lifting in wondering gaze his great blue eyes. 
Sweet pouting lips, parted by breathing sighs ; 
Soft cheeks, warm tinted as from tropic lands; 
Framed with brown hair in shining silken strands, — 
All fair, all pure, a sunbeam from the skies ! 
O perfect innocence ! O soul enshrined 
In blissful ignorance of good or ill, 
By never gale of idle passion crossed ! 
Although thou art no alien from thy kind, 

Though pain and death may take thee captive, still 
Through sin, at least, thine Eden is not lost. 

Elaine Goodale. 



THE PLAYMATE HOURS. 

DAWN lingers silent in the shade of night, 
Till on the gloaming Baby's laughter rings. 
Then smiling Day awakes, and open flings 
Her golden doors, to speed the shining flight 



I38 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Of restless hours, gay children of the light. 

Each eager playfellow to Baby brings 

Some separate gift, — a flitting bird that sings 
With her ; a waving branch of berries bright; 
A heap of rustling leaves ; each trifle cheers 

This joyous little life but just begun. 
No weary hour to her brings sighs or tears ; 

And w T hen the shadows warn the loitering sun, 
With blossoms in her hands, untouched by fears, 

She softly falls asleep, and day is done. 

Mrs. T. W. Higginson. 



CRADLE SONG. 

THE winds are whispering over the sea, 
And the waves are listening smilingly, - 
They are telling tales of the shining sky, 
And the dusky lands they travel by. 

They are telling tales they have often told,— 

Of faces new and feelings old, 

Of hope and fear, of love and hate, 

Of birth and death and human fate, 

Of homes of joy and hearts of pain, 
Of storm and strife, and peace again, 
Of age and youth, of man and maid, 
And of baby mine, in the cradle laid. 



SOME TIME. 139 

And the sun laughs down in his own kind way, 
For the heart of the sun is as young as they ; 
And the sea looks up as a loved one should, — 
They are old; they know it is good, all good. 

You may feel the waves as the cradle swings, 
And the air is stirred with the wind's soft wings, 
And mother has heard from the sky and sea 
That they send " sweet sleep and dreams " to thee. 

Then hush ! my baby, gently rest 

In the night's wide arms, on the earth's broad breast, 

The sky above, beneath the sea, 

And a greater than all to shelter thee. 

Merle St. Croix Wright. 



SOME TIME. 

LAST night, my darling, as you slept, 
I thought I heard you sigh, 
And to your little crib I crept, 

And watched a space thereby ; 
And then I stooped and kissed your brow, 

For oh ! I love you so — 
You are too young to know it now, 
But some time you shall know ! 

Some time when, in a darkened place 

Where others come to weep, 
Your eyes shall look upon a face 

Calm in eternal sleep. 



140 OUT OF THE HEART. 

The voiceless lips, the wrinkled brow, 

The patient smile shall show — 
You are too young to know it now, 

But some time you may know ! 

Look backward, then, into the years, 

And see me here to-night, — 
See, O my darling ! how my tears 

Are falling as I write, 
And feel once more upon your brow 

The kiss of long ago — 
You are too young to know it now, 

But some time you shall know. 

Eugene Field. 



WHERE BABY JOY COMES FROM. 

AS I sat by my study table, 
With my sermon strewing the floor. 
My little sixteen-month darling 

Came full-sail through the study door. 
He first bore away to the window, 

Then veered to the bright hearthstone ; 
But soon in the furthest corner 
Cast anchor all alone. 

First he rattled the quills in my pen-box, 
And then with the carpet he played; 

Then he washed his hands in the sunshine, 
And caught at the shadows they made. 



FROM " THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER:' 141 

One thing was as good as another, 

For each gave a new surprise : 
And the light of his childish gladness 

Kept shining on out of his eyes. 

As I wondered where all the joy came from, 

This thought fell from heaven on me, 
That when God and a babe are together, 

A little fountain of glee 
Must needs bubble up in the child's heart, 

Because those waters are given, 
And ever renewed by the joy tides 

Of the great cheerful Heart in heaven. 

I had quite forgotten my sermon, 

And my baby upon the floor 
Was tearing the papers to pieces 

That were strewed from window to door ; 
But I knew that the thought he gave me 

Was more than his hands could destroy, — 
For the love of the Father in heaven 

Had come to me through my boy. 

Samuel R. Calthrop. 



FROM "THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER." 

LOOK through mine eyes with thine. True wife, 
Round my true heart thine arms entwine ; 
My other dearer life in life, 

Look through my very soul with thine ! 



142 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Untouched with any shade of years, 
May those kind eyes forever dwell! 

They have not shed a many tears, 

Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. 

Yet tears they shed : they had their part 

Of sorrow ; for when time was ripe, 
The still affection of the heart 

Became an outward breathing type, 
That into stillness passed again, 

And left a want unknown before ; 
Although the loss that brought us pain, 

That loss but made us love the more, 

With further lookings on. The kiss, 

The woven arms, seem but to be 
Weak symbols of the settled bliss, 

The comfort, I have found in thee : 
But that God bless thee, dear — who wrought 

Two spirits to one equal mind — 
With blessings beyond hope or thought, 

With blessings which no words can find. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



ALL MOTHER. 

IF I had an eagle's wings, 
How grand to sail the sky ! 
But I should drop to the earth 

If I heard my baby cry. 
My baby — my darling, 
The wings may go. for me. 



THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. 143 

If I were a splendid queen, 

With a crown to keep in place, 
Would it do for a little wet mouth 

To rub all over my face ? 
My baby — my darling, 

The crown may go, for me. 

Eliza Sproat Turner. 



A GRACE FOR A CHILD. 

HERE, a little child, I stand, 
Heaving up my. either hand; 
Cold as paddocks though they be, 
Here I lift them up to Thee, 
For a benison to fall 
On our meat, and on us all. Amen. 

Robert Herrick. 



THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. 

BETWEEN the dark and the daylight, 
When the night is beginning to lower, 
Comes a pause in the day's occupations, 
That is known as the Children's Hour. 

I hear in the chamber above me 

The patter of little feet, 
The sound of a door that is opened, 

And voices soft and sweet. 



144 OUT OF THE HEART 

From my study I see in the lamplight, 
Descending the broad hall stair, 

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, 
And Edith with golden hair. 

A whisper and then a silence : 
Yet I know by their merry eyes 

They are plotting and planning together 
To take me by surprise. 

A sudden rush from the stairway, 
A sudden raid from the hall ! 

By three doors left unguarded 
They enter my castle wall ! 

They climb up into my turret 

O'er the arms and back of my chair ; 

If I try to escape, they surround me ; 
They seem to be everywhere. 

They almost devour me with kisses, 
Their arms about me entwine, 

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine ! 

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, 
Because you have scaled the wall, 

Such an old moustache as I am 
Is not a match for vou all ! 



THE TOYS. 145 

I have you fast in my fortress 

And will not let you depart, 
But put you down into the dungeon 

In the round-tower of my heart. 

And there will I keep you forever, 

Yes, forever and a day, 
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, 

And moulder in dust away. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



THE TOYS. 

MY little son, who looked from thoughtful eyes 
And moved and spoke in quiet, grown-up wise. 
Having my law the seventh time disobeyed, 
I struck him, and dismissed 
With hard words and unkissed, — 
His mother, who was patient, being dead. 
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, 
I visited his bed ; 
But found him slumbering deep, 
With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet 
From his late sobbing wet. 
And I, with moan, 

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own ; 
For on a table drawn beside his head, 
He had put within his reach, 
A box of counters, and a red-veined stone, 
A piece of glass, abraded by the beach, 
10 



I46 OUT OF THE HEART. 

And six or seven shells, 
A bottle with blue-bells, 

And two French copper coins, ranged there with care- 
ful art, 
To comfort his sad heart. 
So when that night I prayed 
To God, I wept and said : 
Ah ! when at last we lie with tranced breath, 
Not vexing Thee in death, 
And Thou rememberest of what toys 
We made our joys, 
How weakly understood 
Thy great commanded good, 
Then, fatherly, not less 

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, 
Thou It leave thy wrath and say : 
" I will be sorry for their childishness." 

Coventry Patmore. 



MORNING-GLORY. 

TT 70NDROUS interlacement ! 
V V Holding fast to threads by green and 
silky rings. 
With the dawn it spreads its white and purple wings ; 
Generous in its bloom, and sheltering while it clings. 
Sturdy morning-glory. 

Creeping through the casement. 
Slanting to the floor in dusty, shining beams. 
Dancing on the door in quick, fantastic gleams. 



A MOTHER'S PICTURE. I47 

Comes the new day's light, and pours in tideless 
streams, 
Golden morning-glory. 

In the lowly basement, 

Rocking in the sun, the baby's cradle stands ; 

Now the little one thrusts out his rosy hands ; 

Soon his eyes will open ; then in all the lands 

No such morning-glory. 

H. H. Jackson. 



A MOTHER'S PICTURE. 

SHE seemed an angel to our infant eyes ! 
Once when the glorifying moon revealed 
Her who at evening by our pillow kneeled, — 
Soft-voiced and golden-haired, from holy skies 
Flown to her loves on wings of Paradise, — 
We looked to see the pinions half-concealed. 
The Tuscan vines and olives will not yield 
Her back to me who loved her in this wise, 

And since have little known her, but have grown 
To see another mother tenderly 

Watch over sleeping children of my own. 

Perhaps the years have changed her, yet alone 
This picture lingers ; still she seems to me 
The fair young angel of my infancy. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman. 



I48 OUT OF THE HEART 



THE HAPPY CHILD. 

TOYS and treats and pleasures pass 
Like a shadow in a glass, 
Like the smoke that mounts on high, 
Like a noonday's butterfly. 

Quick they come and quick they end, 
Like the money that I spend ; 
Some to-day. to-morrow more, 
Short, like those that went before. 

Mother, fold me to your knees ! 
How much should I care for these 
Little joys that come and go 
If you did not love me so ? 

Father, now my prayer is said, 
Lay your hand upon my head ! 
Pleasures pass from day to day, 
But I know that love will stay. 

While I sleep it will be near ; 
I shall wake and find it here; 
I shall feel it in the air, 
When I say my morning prayer. 

And when things are sad or wrong, 
Then I know that love is strong ; 
When I ache or when I weep. 
Then I know that love is deep. 



BABY MINE. 1 49 

Love is old and love is new, 
You love me and I love you ; 
And the Lord who made it thus, 
Did it in His love for us. 

William Brighty Rand. 



BABY MINE. 

BABY mine, with the grave, grave face, 
Where did you get that royal calm, 
Too staid for joy, too still for grace ? 

I bend as I kiss your pink, soft palm ; 
Are you the first of a nobler race, 
Baby mine ? 

You come from the region of long ago, 

And gazing awhile where the seraphs dwell 

Has given your face a glory and glow, — 
Of that brighter land have you aught to tell ? 

I seem to have known it — I more would know, 
Baby mine. 

Your calm blue eyes have a far-off reach : 

Look at me now with those wondrous eyes. 
Why are we doom'd to the gift of speech 

While you are silent and sweet and wise ? 
You have much to learn — you have more to teach. 
Baby mine. 

Frederick Locker. 



150 OUT OF THE HEART. 



COMPENSATION. 

I AM not a prosperous man ; 
The ships I send to sea 
Are apt to meet some strange defeat 

Ere they come back to me. 
And her eyes are dulled with care, 

And the castle that serves our prime 
Is a poor affair to those in the air 
We built in our courting time. 

This morning, waking slow 

To a sense of the coming day, 
Of the life too mean, and the might have been, 

My coward heart gave way. 
My heart, appalled, sank down. 

But rose again with a leap 
At our delight when at dead of night 

Our babe laughed out in his sleep. 

Eliza Sproat Turner. 



LIKE A LITTLE CHILD. 

MY child is lying on my knee, 
The signs of heaven she reads ; 
My face is all the heaven she sees, 
Is all the heaven she needs. 



LIKE A LITTLE CHILD. I 5 I 

And she is well, yea, bathed in bliss, 

If heaven is in my face ; 
Behind it all is tenderness 

And truthfulness and grace. 

I mean her well so earnestly, 

Unchanged in changing mood ; 
My life would go, without a sigh, 

To bring her something good. 

I also am a child, and I 

Am ignorant and weak ; 
I gaze upon the starry sky, 

And then I must not speak, 

For all behind the starry sky, 

Behind the world so broad, 
Behind men's hearts and souls doth lie 

The Infinite of God. 



Ay, true to her, though troubled sore, 

I cannot choose but be ; 
Thou who art peace forevermore 

Art very true to me. 

If I am low and sinful, bring 
More love where need is rife ; 

Thou knowest what an awful thing 
It is to be a life. 



152 OUT OF THE HEART 

Lo ! Lord, I sit in thy wide space, 

My child upon my knee; 
She looketh up into my face, 

And I look up to Thee. 

George MacDonald. 



TO A CHILD. 

IF by any device or knowledge 
The rosebud its beauty could know, 
It would stay a rosebud forever, 
Nor into its fulness grow. 

And if thou coukTst know thy own sweetness. 
O little one, perfect and sweet ! 
Thou would'st be a child forever, 
Completer whilst incomplete. 

Francis Turner Palgrave. 



THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE. 

EACH man's chimney is his golden mile-stone, 
Is the central point from which he measures 
Every distance, 
Through the gateways of the world around him. 

In his farthest wanderings still he sees it ; 

Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind. 

As he heard them 
When he sat with those who were, but are not. 



WHICH? I S 



DJ 



Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, 
Nor the march of the encroaching city. 

Drives an exile 
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead. 

We may build more splendid habitations, 

Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, 

But we cannot 
Buy with gold the old associations ! 

Henry Wads worth Longfellow. 



HOME COMFORT. 

AND at night the Septette of Beethoven, 
- And grandmother by in her chair, 
And the foot of all feet on the sofa 
Beating delicate time to the air. 

Charles Kingsley. 

WHICH? 

" \ T 7HICH shall it be ? Which shall it be ? " 
V V I looked at John — John looked at me : 
Dear, patient John, who loves me yet 
As well as though my locks were jet. 
And when I found that I must speak, 
My voice seemed strangely low and weak : 
" Tell me again what Robert said ! " 
And then I, listening, bent my head. 
" This is his letter : 



154 OUT OF THE HEART 

" ' I will give 
A house and land while you shall live 
If, in return, from out your seven 
One child to me for aye is given.' " 
I looked at John's old garments worn, 
I thought of all that John had borne 
Of poverty and work and care, 
Which I, though willing, could not share; 
I thought of seven mouths to feed, 
Of seven little children's need, 
And then of this. 

" Gome, John," said I, 
" We '11 choose among them as they lie 
Asleep." So, walking hand in hand, 
Dear John and I surveyed our band. 
First to the cradle light we stepped, 
Where Lilian the baby slept, 
A glory 'gainst the pillow white. 
Softly the father stooped to lay 
His rough hand down in loving way, 
When dream or whisper made her stir, 
And huskily he said : " Not her ! " 

We stooped beside the trundle-bed, 
And one long ray of lamplight shed 
Athwart the boyish faces there 
In sleep so pitiful and fair. 

I saw on Jamie's rough red cheek 
A tear undried. Ere John could speak, 



WHICH? 155 

" He 's but a baby too," said I, 
And kissed him as we hurried by. 

Pale, patient Robbie's angel face 
Still in his sleep bore suffering's trace : 
" No, for a thousand crowns, not him," 
He whispered while our eyes were dim. 

Poor bad Dick ! our wayward son, 
Turbulent, reckless, idle one — 
Could he be spared? Nay, He who gave 
Bade us befriend him to the grave ; 
Only a mother's heart can be 
Patient enough for such as he ; 
" And so," said John, " I would not dare 
To send him from her bedside prayer." 

Then stole we softly up above, 
And knelt by Mary, child of love. 

" Perhaps for her 't would better be," 
I said to John. Quite silently 
He lifted up a curl that lay 
Across her cheek in wilful way, 
And shook his head, " Nay, love, not thee," 
The while my heart beat audibly. 

Only one more, our eldest lad, 
Trusty and truthful, good and glad — 
So like his father. " No, John, no — 
I cannot, will not let him go.*' 



156 OUT OF THE HEART 

And so we wrote, in courteous way, 
We could not give one child away. 
And afterward toil lighter seemed, 
Thinking of that of which we dreamed, 
Happy in truth that not one face 
We missed from its accustomed place; 
Thankful to work for all the seven, 
Trusting the rest to One in heaven. 



Anon. 



LAURA, MY DARLING. 

LAURA, my darling, the roses have blushed 
At the kiss of the dew, and our chamber is 
hushed ; 
Our murmuring babe to your bosom has clung, 
And hears in his slumber the song that you sung ; 
I watch you asleep w r ith your arms round him thrown, 
Your links of dark tresses wound in with his own. 
And the wife is as dear as the gentle young bride 
Of the hour when you first, darling, came to my side. 

Laura, my darling, our sail down the stream 

Of Youth's summers and winters has been like a dream ; 

Years have but rounded your womanly grace, 

And added their spell to the light of your face ; 

Your soul is the same as though part were not given 

To the two, like yourself, sent to bless me from 

heaven, — 
Dear lives, springing forth from the life of my life, 
To make you more near, darling, mother and wife ! 



LAURA, MY DARLIXG. I 57 

Laura, my darling, there 's hazel-eyed Fred, 

Asleep in his own tiny cot by the bed, 

And little King Arthur, whose curls have the art 

Of winding their tendrils so close round my heart ; 

Yet fairer than either and dearer than both, 

Is the true one who gave me in girlhood her troth. 

For we, when we mated for evil and good, — 

What were we, darling, but babes in the wood ? 

Laura, my darling, the years which have flown 
Brought few of the prizes I pledged to my own. 
I said that no sorrow should roughen her way, — 
Her life should be cloudless, a long summers day. 
Shadow and sunshine, thistles and flowers, 
Which of the two, darling, most have been ours? 
Yet to-night, by the smile on your lips, I can see 
You are dreaming of me, darling, dreaming of me. 

Laura, my darling, the stars that we knew 

In our youth are still shining as tender and true; 

The midnight is sounding its slumberous bell, 

And I come to the one who has loved me so well. 

Wake, darling, wake, for my vigil is done : 

Who shall dissever our lives which are one? 

Say, while the rose listens under her breath, 

ik Naught until death, darling, naught until death ! " 

Edmund Clarence Stedman. 



I 5'8 OUT OF THE HEART 

THE OLD LOVE SONG. 
June 28, 1890. 

PLAY it slowly, sing it lowly, 
Old familiar tune ! 
Once it ran in dance and dimple, 

Like a brook in June ; 
Now it sobs along the measures 

With a sound of tears ; 
Dear old voices echo through it, 
Vanished with the years. 

Play it slowly, — it is holy 

As an evening hymn ; 
Morning gladness hushed to sadness 

Fills it to the brim. 
Memories home within the music, 

Stealing through the bars, 
Thoughts within its quiet spaces 

Rise and set like stars. 

Ripple, ripple, goes the love-song 

Till, in slowing time, 
Early sweetness grown completeness 

Floods its every rhyme : 
Who together learn the music 

Life and death unfold, 
Know that love is but beginning 

Until love is old. 



HOLIDAYS. 159 

Singing, singing through the roses 

Went our lovers twain, — 
Was there ever such a rose time, 

Could there be again ? 
Now they tell us " Five-and-twenty 

Junes we Ve seen them blow ; 
Every June 's completer, sweeter, — 

Well we lovers know ! " 

William C. Gannett. 



HOLIDAYS. 

THE holiest of all holidays are those 
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart; 
The secret anniversaries of the heart, 
When the full river of feeling overflows ; — 

The happy days unclouded to their close; 
The sudden joys that out of darkness start 
As flames from ashes ; swift desires that dart 
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows ! 

White as the gleam of a receding sail, 

White as a cloud that floats and fades in air, 
White as the whitest lily on a stream, 

These tender memories are; — a Fairy Tale 
Of some enchanted land we know not where, 
But lovely as a landscape in a dream. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



[60 OUT OF THE HEART 



BETROTHED ANEW. 

THE sunlight fills the trembling air, 
And balmy days their guerdons bring ; 
The Earth again is young and fair, 
And amorous with musky Spring. 

The golden nurslings of the May 

In splendor strew the spangled green, 

And hours of tender beauty play, 
Entangled where the willows lean. 

Mark how the rippled currents flow ; 

What lustres on the meadows lie ! 
And hark, the songsters come and go, 

And trill between the earth and sky. 

Who told us that the years had fled, 
Or borne afar our blissful youth ? 

Such joys are all about us spread, 
We know the whisper was not truth. 

The birds, that break from grass and grove, 
Sing every carol that they sung 

When first our veins were rich with love, 
And May her mantle round us flung. 

O fresh-lit dawn ! immortal life ! 

O Earth's betrothal, sweet and true, 
With whose delights our souls are rife, 

And aye their vernal vows renew ! 



THE GOOD SISTER. l6l 

Then, darling, walk with me this morn, 
Let your brown tresses drink its sheen ; 

These violets, within them worn, 
Of floral fays shall make you queen. 

What though there comes a time of pain 
When autumn winds forebode decay ; 

The days of love are born again, 
That fabled time is far away ! 

And never seemed the land so fair 
As now, nor birds such notes to sing, 

Since first within your shining hair 
I wove the blossoms of the Spring. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman. 



THE GOOD SISTER. 

THERE is no friend like a sister, 
In calm or stormy weather, 
To cheer one on the tedious way, 
To fetch one if one goes astray, 
To lift one if one totters down, 
To strengthen whilst one stands. 

Christina G. Rossetti. 



ii 



1 62 OUT OF THE HEART. 



LOVE AND DEATH. 

\\ 7 HEN the end comes, and we must say good-by, 
V V And I am going to the quiet land ; 

And sitting in some loved place hand in hand, 
For the last time together, you and I, 
We watch the winds blow, and the sunlight lie 

Above the spaces of our garden home, 

Soft by the washing of the western foam, 
Where we have lived and loved in days past by, — 
We must not weep, my darling, or upbraid 

The quiet death who comes to part us twain ; 

But know that parting would not be such pain 
Had not our love a perfect flower been made. 
And we shall find it in God's garden laid 

On that sweet day wherein we meet again. 

Anon. 



BROTHER AND SISTER. 

I CAN NOT choose but think upon the time 
When our two lives grew like two buds that kiss 
At lightest thrill from the bee's swinging chime, 
Because the one so near the other is. 

He was the elder and a little man 
Of forty inches, bound to show no dread, 
And I the girl that, puppy-like, now ran, 
Now lagged behind my brother's larger tread. 



BROTHER AND SISTER. 1 63 

I held him wise, and when he talked to me 
Of snakes and birds, and which God loved the best, 
I thought his knowledge marked the boundary 
Where men grew blind, though angels knew the rest. 

Long years have left their writing on my brow, 
But yet the freshness and the dew-fed beam 
Of those young mornings are about me now, 
When we two wandered toward the far-off stream 

With rod and line. Our basket held a store 
Baked for us only, and I thought with joy 
That I should have my share, though he had more, 
Because he was the elder and a boy. 

The firmaments of daisies since to me 
Have had those mornings in their opening eyes, 
The bunched cowslip's pale transparency 
Carries that sunshine of sweet memories. 



Those hours were seed to all my after good ; 
My infant gladness, through eye, ear, and touch, 
Took easily as warmth a various food 
To nourish the sweet skill of loving much. 

Our brown canal was endless to my thought ; 
And on its banks I sat in dreamy peace, 
Unknowing how the good I loved was wrought, 
Untroubled by the fear that it would cease. 



164 OUT OF THE HEART 

Slowly the barges floated into view, 
Rounding a grassy hill to me sublime 
With some Unknown beyond it, whither flew 
The parting cuckoo toward a fresh spring time. 

His sorrow was my sorrow, and his joy 
Sent little leaps and laughs through all my frame ; 
My doll seemed lifeless, and no girlish toy 
Had any reason when my brother came. 

School parted us ; we never found again 
That childish world where our two spirits mingled 
Like scents from varying roses that remain 
One sweetness, nor can evermore be singled. 

Yet the twin habit of that early time 
Lingered for long about the heart and tongue ; 
We had been natives of one happy clime, 
And its dear accent to our utterance clung 

Till the dire years whose awful name is Change 
Had grasped our souls still yearning in divorce, 
And pitiless shaped them in two forms that range 
Two elements which sever their life's course. 

But were another childhood-world my share, 
I would be born a little sister there. 

George Eliot. 



EXCUSE. 165 



FRIENDSHIP. 

A RUDDY drop of manly blood 
The surging sea outweighs ; 
The world uncertain comes and goes, 
The lover rooted stays. 
I fancied he was fled, 
And after many a year 
Glowed unexhausted kindliness, 
Like daily sunrise there. 
My careful heart was free again : 
O friend, my bosom said, 
Through thee alone the sky is arched, 
Through thee the rose is red ; 
All things through thee take nobler form, 
And look beyond the earth, — 
The mill-round of our fate appears 
A sun-path in thy worth. 
Me too thy nobleness has taught 
To master my despair ; 
The fountains of my hidden life 
Are through thy friendship fair. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

EXCUSE. 

I TOO have suffered. Yet I know 
She is not cold, though she seems so : 
She is not cold, she is not light ; 
But our ignoble souls lack might. 



1 66 OUT OF THE HEART. 

She smiles, and smiles, and will not sigh, 
While we for hopeless passion die ; 
Yet she could love, those eyes declare, 
Were but men nobler than they are. 

Eagerly once her gracious ken 

Was turned upon the sons of men; 

But light the serious visage grew, — 

She looked, and smiled, and saw them through. 

Our petty souls, our strutting wits, 
Our labored, puny passion fits, — 
Ah, may she scorn them still, till we 
Scorn them as bitterly as she ! 

Yet O that Fate would let her see 
One of some worthier race than we, — 
One for whose sake she once might prove 
How deeply she who scorns can love ! 

His eyes be like the starry lights, 
His voice like sounds of summer nights ! 
In all his lovely mien let pierce 
The magic of the universe ! 

And she to him will reach her hand, 
And gazing in his eyes will stand, 
And know her friend, and weep for glee, 
And cry, Long, long I Ve looked for thee ! 



OUR TWO OPINIONS. 1 67 

Then will she weep. With smiles till then 
Coldly she mocks the sons of men. 
Till then her lovely eyes maintain 
Their gay, unwavering, deep disdain. 

Matthew Arnold. 



OUR TWO OPINIONS. 

US two wuz boys when we fell out, — 
Nigh to the age uv my youngest now ; 
Don't rec'lect what 't wuz about, 

Some small deefFrence, I '11 allow. 
Lived next neighbors twenty years, 

A-hatin' each other, me 'nd Jim, — 
He havin' his opinyin uv me, 
'nd / havin' my opinyin uv hi?n. 

Grew up together 'nd would n't speak, 

Courted sisters, 'nd marr'd 'em too ; 
'Tended same meetin'-house oncet a week, 

A-hatin' each other through and through ! 
But when Abe Linkern asked the West 

F'r soldiers, we answered, — me 'nd Jim, — 
He havin' his opinyin uv me^ 

'nd /havin' my opinyin uv hi?n. 

But down in Tennessee one night 
Ther wuz sound uv firin' fur away, 

'nd the sergeant allowed ther 'd be a fight 
With the Johnnie Rebs some time nex' day ; 



1 68 OUT OF THE HEART 

'nd as I wuz thinkin' uv Lizzie 'nd home, 
Jim stood afore me, long 'nd slim, — 

He havin' his opinyin uv me, 
'nd / havin' my opinyin uv him. 

Seemed like we knew there wuz goin' to be 

Serious trouble f'r me 'nd him ; 
Us two shuck hands, did Jim 'nd me, 

But never a word from me or Jim ! 
He went his way 'nd / went mine, 

'nd into the battle's roar went we, — 
I havin' my opinyin uv Jim, 

'nd he havin' his opinyin uv me. 

Jim never come back from the war again, 

But I haint forgot that last, last night 
When, waitin' f'r orders, us two men 

Made up 'nd shuck hands, afore the fight, 
'nd after all, it 's soothin' to know 

That here / be 'nd yonder 's Jim, 
He havin' his opinyin uv me, 

'nd / havin' ?ny opinyin uv him. 

Eugene Field. 



NEW HOUSE: OLD HOME. 

YOUR house is built on holy ground : 
A loving home was here, 
Where I a kindly welcome found 
For many a goodly year. 



NEW HOUSE: OLD HOME. 1 69 

I bless the old with grateful heart, 

With joy I hail the new, 
Whose walls the builder's patient art 

Have built so sound and true. 



With happy eyes its strength I see, 

And all its beauty own : 
Each part complete as 't were to be 

Prized for itself alone. 

New House — Old Home ; O happy walls 

For such a glory meet ! — 
To echo little children's calls, 

And hear their pattering feet ; 

To shield them in their gentle sleep, 

Nor frown upon their play; 
The treasure of their life to keep 

From every harm away. 

Here love that seemed complete before 

Shall yet more perfect grow, 
As every happy year shall more 

Of inward grace bestow. 

New House ! But still old books shall cheer, 

Old music sway the heart, 
And flowers that have been always dear 

Their tender grace impart. 



170 OUT OF THE HEART 

Old Home ! for o'er the threshold strange 
Old friends shall haste to prove 

How little changing place can change 
The hearts of those who love. 

Old Home ! for westering age shall shed 

Its blessing on the scene, 
With sacred thoughts that daily wed 

What is with what hath been ; 

Ay, and what is with that beyond 

Our vision's farthest scope 
Which makes each memory sweet and fond 

A promise and a hope. 

New House, Old Home ! and what if here 

An emblem true should be 
Of things which shall to us appear 

In love's eternity ? 

John W. Chadwick. 



AT FOUR-SCORE. 

THIS is the house she was born in, full four-score 
years ago, — 
And here she is living still, bowed and ailing, but 

clinging 
Still to this wonted life, — like an ancient and blasted 

oak-tree 
Whose dying roots yet clasp the earth with an iron 
hold. 



AT FO UR-SCORE. I 7 1 

This is the house she was born in, and yonder across 

the bay 
Is the home her lover built, — for her and for him and 

their children ; 
Daily she watched it grow, from dawn to the evening 

twilight, 
As it rose on the orchard hill, 'mid the spring-time 

showers and bloom. 



There is the village church, its steeple over the trees 
Rises and shows the clock she has watched since the 

day it was started, — 
'T is many a year ago, how many she cannot remember : 
Now solemnly over the water rings out the evening 

hour. 



And there in that very church, — though, alas, how 

bedizened and changed ! 
They Ve painted it up, she says, in their queer, new, 

modern fashion, — 
There on a morning in June she gave her hand to her 

husband ; 
Her heart it was his (she told him) long years and 

years before. 

Now here she sits at the window, gazing out on steeple 

and hill ; 
All but the houses have gone, — the church, and the 

trees, and the houses ; — 



172 OUT OF THE HEART. 

All, all have gone long since, parents and husband 
and children ; 

And herself, — she thinks, at times, she too has van- 
ished and gone. 

No, it cannot be she who stood in the church that 

morning in June, 
Nor she who felt at her breast the lips of a child in the 

darkness : 
But hark ! in the gathering dusk comes a low, quick 

moan of anguish, — 
Ah, it is she indeed who has lived, who has loved, and 

lost. 

For she thinks of a wintry night when her last was 

taken away, — 
Forty years this very month, — the last, the fairest, 

the dearest ; 
All gone, — ah, yes, it is she who has loved, who has 

lost and suffered, 
She and none other it is, left alone in her sorrow and 

pain. 

Still with its sapless roots, that stay though the 

branches have dropped, 
Have withered and fallen and gone, their strength and 

their glory forgotten ; 
Still with the life that remains, silent and faithful and 

steadfast, 

Through sunshine and bending storm clings the oak 

to its mother-earth. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



TETE-A-TETE. 173 



TETE-A-TETE. 
I. 

ABIT of ground, a smell of earth, 
A pleasant murmur in the trees, 
The chirp of birds, an insect's hum, 
And, kneeling on their chubby knees, 

Two neighbors' children at their play ; 

Who has not seen a hundred such ? — 
A head of gold, a head of brown, 

Bending together till they touch. 



II. 

A country schoolhouse by the road, 
A spicy scent of woods anear, 

And all the air with summer sounds 
Laden for who may care to hear. 

So do not two, a boy and girl, 
Who stay when all the rest are gone, 

Solving a problem deeper far 
Than one they seem intent upon. 

Dear hearts, of course they do not know 
How near their heads together lean ; 

The bee that wanders through the room 
Has hardly space to go between. 



174 0UT 0F THE HEART. 



III. 

Now darker is the head of brown, 
The head of gold is brighter now, 

And lines of deeper thought and life 
Are written upon either brow. 

The sense that thrilled their being through 
With nameless longings vast and dim, 

Has found a voice, has found a name, 
And where he goes she follows him. 

Again their heads are bending near, 
And bending down in silent awe 

Above a morsel pure and sweet, 
A miracle of love and law. 

How often shall their heads be bowed 
With joy or grief, with love and pride, 

As waxeth strong that feeble life, 
Or slowly ebbs its falling tide ! 

IV. 

A seaward hill where lie the dead 

In dreamless slumber deep and calm ; 

Above their graves the roses bloom, 
And all the air is full of balm. 

They da not smell the roses sweet ; 

They do not see the ships that go 
Along the far horizon's edge ; 

They do not feel the breezes blow. 



TWO LOVERS. 175 

Here loving hands have gently laid 
The neighbors' children, girl and boy, 

And man and wife ; head close to head 
They sleep, and know nor pain nor joy. 

John W. Chad wick. 



TWO LOVERS. 

TWO lovers by a moss-grown spring : 
They leaned soft cheeks together there, 
Mingled the dark and sunny hair, 
And heard the wooing thrushes sing. 

O budding time ! 
O love's blest prime ! 

Two wedded from the portal stept : 
The bells made happy carollings, 
The air was soft as fanning wings, 
White petals on the pathway slept. 

O pure-eyed bride ! 
O tender pride ! 

Two faces o'er a cradle bent : 

Two hands above the head were locked ; 
These pressed each other while they rocked, 
Those watched a life that love had sent. 
O solemn hour ! 
O hidden power ! 



176 OUT OF THE HEART 

Two parents by the evening fire : 
The red light fell about their knees 
On heads that rose by slow degrees 
Like buds upon the lily spire. 

O patient life ! 
O tender strife ! 

The two still sat together there, 

The red light shone about their knees ; 
But all the heads by slow degrees 
Had gone and left that lonely pair. 

O voyage fast ! 
O vanished past ! 

The red light shone upon the floor 

And made the space between them wide ; 
They drew their chairs up side by side, 
Their pale cheeks joined, and said, " Once more ! " 
O memories ! 
O past that is ! 

George Eliot. 

IN TWOS. 

SOMEWHERE in the world there hide 
Garden-gates that no one sees 
Save they come in happy twos, — 
Not in ones, nor yet in threes. 

But from every maiden's door 
Leads a pathway straight and true ; 
Maps and surveys know it not ; 
He who finds, finds room for two ! 



IN TWOS. 177 



Then they see the garden-gates ! 
Never skies so blue as theirs, 
Never flowers so many-sweet 
As for those who come in pairs. 

Round and round the alleys wind : 
Now a cradle bars their way, 
Now a little mound, behind, — 
So the two go through the day. 

When no nook in all the lanes 
But has heard a song or sigh, 
Lo ! another garden-gate 
Opens as the two go by ! 

In they wander, knowing not : 
" Five and Twenty ! " fills the air 
With a silvery echo low, 
All about the startled pair. 

Happier yet these garden-walks ; 
Closer, heart to heart, they lean ; 
Stiller, softer falls the light ; 
Few the twos, and far between. 

Till, at last, as on they pass 
Down the paths so well they know 
Once again at hidden gates 
Stand the two : they enter slow. 
12 



1 78 OUT OF THE HEART. 

Golden gates of Fifty Years, 
May oar two your latchet press ! 
Garden of the Sunset Land, 
Hold their dearest happiness. 

Then a quiet walk again : 
Then a wicket in the wall ; 
Then one, stepping on alone, — 
Then two at the Heart of All ! 



William C. Gannett. 



THE OLD MAN DREAMS. 

OFOR one hour of youthful joy! 
Give back my twentieth spring \ 
I 'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy, 
Than reign, a gray-beard king. 

Off with the spoils of wrinkled age ! 

Away with learning's crown ! 
Tear out life's wisdom-written page, 

And dash its trophies down ! 

One moment let my life-blood stream 
From boyhood's fount of flame ! 

Give me one giddy, reeling dream 
Of life all love and fame ! 



THE OLD MAN DREAMS. 1 79 

My listening angel heard the prayer, 

And, calmly smiling, said, 
" If I but touch thy silvered hair 

Thy hasty wish hath sped. 

11 But is there nothing in thy track 

To bid thee fondly stay 
While the swift seasons hurry back 

To find the wished-for day? " 

" Ah, truest soul of womankind ! 

Without thee what were life ? 
One bliss I cannot leave behind : 

I '11 take — my — precious — wife V^ 

The angel took a sapphire pen 

And wrote in rainbow dew ; 
" The man would be a boy again, 

And be a husband too ! " 



"And is there nothing yet unsaid, 
Before the change appears ? 

Remember, all their gifts have fled 
With those dissolving years." 

" Why, yes, for memory would recall 

My fond paternal joys ; 
I could not bear to leave them all — 

I '11 take — my — girl — and — boys." 



l80 OUT OF THE HEART 

The smiling angel dropped his pen, 

" Why this will never do ; 
The man would be a boy again, 

And be a father too ! " 

And so I laughed, — my laughter woke 
The household with its noise, — 

And wrote my dream, when morning broke, 
To please the gray-haired boys. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



THE DAISY FOLLOWS SOFT THE SUN. 

THE daisy follows soft the sun, 
And when his golden walk is done, 
Sits shyly at his feet. 
He, waking, finds the flower near. 
" Wherefore, marauder, art thou here ? " 
" Because, sir, love is sweet ! " 

We are the flower, Thou the sun ! 
Forgive us, if as days decline, 

We nearer steal to Thee, 
Enamoured of the parting west, 
The peace, the flight, the amethyst, 

Night's possibility ! 

Emily Dickinson. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



Page 

A bit of ground, a smell of earth 173 

About my Darling's lovely eyes 42 

A face of a summer ago 38 

Ah! I remember well, and how can I 31 

Ah ! sad are they who know not love 115 

All that I know 35 

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee 2 

All unconscious I beheld her 37 

Although I enter not . 8 

And at night the septette of Beethoven ....... 153 

And how could you dream of meeting ? 92 

And on her lover's arm she leant 123 

A picture-frame for you to fill 91 

A ruddy drop of manly blood 165 

A simple ring with a single stone 29 

As I sat by my study table 140 

Ask me no more •. the moon may draw the sea 44 

As unto blowing roses summer dews 7 

A week ago ; and I am almost glad 47 

A young wife stood at the lattice-pane 127 

Baby mine, with the grave, grave face 149 

Because we once drove together , 78 

Be happy now with him, and love him who loves thee . . 119 

Between the dark and the daylight 143 

By a clear well, within a little field 40 



1 82 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 

Page 

Darling, he said, I never meant 125 

Dawn lingers silent in the shade of night 137 

Dimpled and flushed and dewy pink he lies 137 

Do not write. I am sad, and would my life were o'er . . 112 

Do you remember that most perfect night 24 

Each man's chimney is his golden mile-stone 152 

Escape me ? 22 

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed y^ 

From you have I been absent in the spring ...... 4 

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may 71 

Gentle severity, repulses mild » 74 

God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 106 

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 59 

Good-night ! I have to say good-night , 10 

Had I but earlier known that from the eyes ...... 84 

Have you got a brook in your little heart 51 

He gather'd blue forget-me-nots 34 

Here, a little child, I stand 143 

Here 's the garden she walked across 84 

Her father loved me ; oft invited me 107 

Her fingers shame the ivory keys 75 

He who loves truly, grows in force and might ..... 104 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways 57 

How many new years have grown old 32 

How many times do I love thee, dear? 44 

How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st 19 

How strange a thing a lover seems ... no 

How sweet it were, if without ieeble fright 119 

How your sweet face revives again 95 

I am not a prosperous man 150 

I cannot choose but think upon the time 162 

I could not bear to see those eyes 13 

I count my times by times that I meet thee 4 

If by any device or knowledge 152 

If I had an eagle's wings 142 

If I had known in the morning 125 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 1 83 

Page 

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange S 

If I were your little baby 27 

If on the clustering curls of thy dark hair ....... 93 

If thou must love me, let it be for nought 103 

If you were coming in the fall 69 

I had no time to hate, because 99 

I know full well what saith Saint Paul 133 

In a drear-nighted December 18 

In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours 107 

In the day the sun is darkened .......... 106 

In the year that 's come and gone, love 57 

I thought it meant all glad ecstatic things 15 

It is the season now to go 54 

It must be right sometimes to entertain 88 

I too have suffered. Yet I know 165 

1 waited in the little sunny room 64 

I wandered by the brook-side 87 

I said. My heart, now let us sing a song 122 

1 said to Lettice, our sister Lettice 105 

I will not let you say a woman's part 100 

I wish I could remember that first day 8 

Jenny kissed me when we met 98 

Jess and Jill are pretty girls 55 

Keep your undrest, familiar style . 94 

Kissing her hair, I sat against her feet ........ 45 

Last night in blue my little love was dressed 61 

Last night, my darling, as you slept . . 139 

Laura, my darling, the roses have blushed 156 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 86 

Look through mine eyes with thine. True wife .... 141 

Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine 22 

" book up," she said ; and all the heavens blazed .... 20 

Love me not, Love, for that 1 first loved thee 70 

My child is lying on my knee 150 

My dear and only love, I pray 93 

My lady carries love within her eyes 49 



I 84 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 

. Page 

My little love sits in the shade 50 

My little son, who looked from thoughtful eyes 145 

My love for thee doth march like armed men 56 

My pretty budding, breathing flower ....... 130 

My true love hath my heart and 1 have his 53 

Not from the whole wide world I chose thee 16 

Not in this world to see his face 114 

Now the rite is duly done 121 

O for one hour of youthful joy! 178 

Oh, did you see him riding down 25 

Oh, Love is not a summer mood 1 

O how my heart is beating as her name I keep repeating . 52 

O kisse, which doest those ruddie gemmes impart .... 20 

One kiss from all others prevents me . 62 

One word is too often profaned 46 

Only a shelter for my head I sought 5 

Opening one day a book of mine 71 

Others may need new life in Heaven 113 

O true and tried, so well and long . . 115 

Play it slowly, sing it lowly 158 

Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin y 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls 14 

Room after room 23 

She flushed and paled, and, bridling, raised her head ... 39 

She hung the cage at the window 62 

She passed up the aisle on the arm of her sire 64 

She sauntered by the swinging seas 60 

She seemed an angel to our infant eyes ! 147 

She stood breast-high amid the corn ........ 43 

Since there 's no help, come, let us kiss and part ! . . . . 99 

So I shall see her in three days 68 

Some day, some day of days, threading the street .... 109 

Somewhere in the world there hide . 176 

Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest 128 

Still on the tower stood the vane 96 

Summer is coming, summer is coming 66 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 1 85 

Page 

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind 91 

The conference meeting through at last 80 

The daisy follows soft the sun 180 

The fountains smoke, and yet no flames they show ... 17 

The glow and the glory are plighted 1 1 

The holiest of all holidays are those 159 

The letter which you wrote me 39 

The love wherewith my heart is big for thee 41 

The moth's kiss first ! 21 

The nightingale has a lyre of gold 55 

The sense of the world is short 1 

The sunlight fills the trembling air 160 

There is no friend like a sister 161 

There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the 

purest 73 

The winds are whispering over the sea 138 

The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 16 

They gave the whole long day to idle laughter $2 

They walked together, in the dusk 30 

This is the house she was born in. full four-score years ago . 170 

Thou art so very sweet and fair 61 

'T is sweeter than all else below 90 

To heroism and holiness 6 

Toys and treats and pleasures pass 148 

'T was April ; 't was Sunday ; the day was fair 102 

Twice had the changing seasons run their round .... 58 

Two lovers by a moss-grown spring 175 

Two roses growing on a single tree 120 

Under the coverlet's snowy fold [28 

Upon her snowy couch she drooping lies 133 

Us two wuz boys when we fell out 167 

Warmed by her hand and shadowed by her hair 65 

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed ....... 89 

We chose our blossoms, sitting on the grass 66 

Were I as base as is the lowly plain 40 

What were the whole void world, if thou wert dead ... 89 



1 86 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 

Page 

Whenas in silk my Julia goes 96 

When daffodils began to blow 28 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes ..... 31 

When she comes home again ! a thousand ways 1 24 

When the end comes, and we must say good-by 162 

When you are old, and I am passed away 103 

Which shall it be ? Which shall it be 153 

Why ask of others what they cannot say 46 

With strawberries we filled a tray 3 

Wondrous interlacement ! 146 

Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng 36 

Would you know the baby's skies? 132 

Yea, let me praise my lady whom I love . 113 

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass , 11 

Your house is built on holy ground 168 

Your picture smiles as first it smiled 25 

You sleep upon your mother's breast 135 




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